Swerve Strickland: Sting’s Presence Made You Want To Step Up

Swerve Strickland reflects on getting the chance to work with Sting.

Swerve Strickland talks about Sting and the humility ‘The Icon’ carried throughout his career.

Earlier this month at AEW Revolution, Sting finished off his legendary career with a victory as he and Darby Allin successfully defended the AEW World Tag Team Championships vs The Young Bucks. One man who is familiar with working a tag team match with Sting on a big stage is Swerve Strickland, who teamed with Christian Cage to take on Darby and Sting at AEW All In.

While speaking to The Game Plan in a recent interview, Strickland discussed the humility that Sting brought to the ring with every appearance he made with AEW.

“Just humility. Having humility, knowing timing and who you are. Knowing who you are and using who you are in the ring. Not just resting off your actions, resting off who you are as a professional and persona. Knowing, as a veteran, how to conduct yourself in the locker room. How to be a leader without having to be commanding. He led in so many different ways and was so supportive. He gave praise where praise was really meant. When he came out and gave you praise and complimented you, he was really paying attention, watching, and focused on what you were doing, whether it was a promo or match. That’s going to be missed. I feel a lot of people are going to miss that aspect of Sting. ‘Sting is around, we have to be on our A game.’ Just having his presence there makes you want to step up and be at your absolute very best.”

Swerve is currently still chasing the AEW World Heavyweight Championship and champion Samoa Joe, who recently successfully defended his championship at AEW Big Business. You can read more about that here.

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