Swerve Strickland: I Asked Triple H About A Push Many Times, I Wanted To Be One Of His Go-To Guys

Swerve Strickland gets candid about Triple H.

Swerve Strickland gets candid about his relationship with Triple H.

When the current AEW star was known as Isaiah Swerve Scott in WWE NXT, there was a constant struggle behind the scenes for the multi-talented star to become one of Triple H’s ‘main guys’. 

When appearing on a recent episode of Talk Is Jericho, Strickland revealed that his relationship with NXT’s former head honcho, Triple H, wasn’t all sunshine and roses.

“Triple H felt like a boss to me. That’s no slight to him. He was the boss, and I treated him like a boss. He treated me like an employee. He enjoyed my work and what I contributed to the show and my talents and stuff, but I didn’t have the warm and fuzzy conversations like a [Tommaso] Ciampa would have with him or like a [Adam] Cole would have with him or like Finn [Balor]. Finn could show him his workout equipment at home and they could laugh and stuff. I wasn’t doing that with Triple H. For me, I would cut him off and be like ‘I wanna be one of your go-to guys.’ I said that day one. He’s like ‘Okay, yeah for sure I see you as one of those guys’. He put me in like a big marquee match. Worlds Collide. It was a four way in Houston. I killed it. I’m like ‘I wanna be one of your guys.’ I looked him in the eye and said that to him. He’s like ‘You are one of my guys, what are you talking about?’. I was like ‘I know when you’re committed to somebody and when you’re like hesitant. Why are you hesitant with me?’.” Swerve said. “I always asked him that, straight up. I was like ‘Don’t hesitate with me, becuase I’m gonna make you look stupid at the end when you hesitate and everyone’s like where’s this guy been the whole time?’. That’s what happened when Hit Row kicked off. The last conversation we had, he was trying to duck off and get in his car to get to his private jet and I had got hurt the week before with a hamstring thing, I was out for like four weeks. So I’m like ‘Okay, I’m hurt these four weeks. I’m gonna come back [after] and do something different.’ I wasn’t asking permission, I was telling him. ‘I’m doing something different. I want [lean] towards being more heel-ish and being aggressive and this is what I’m doing.’ That’s why I came back, the hair was changed, the hair color was changed.”

The changes that Swerve made would eventually lead to the mega popular Hit Row faction, but the succuess of that group didn’t last long as all four members would be released from the company by the end of the year. 

To see Swerve’s recollation of the weeks leading up to his release, click here.

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