Top AEW star Swerve Strickland appeared on Baller Alert to talk about various topics, including his top five wrestlers of all time.
Strickland said, “Shingo Takagi is one of them. He’s very underrated as far as Japanese culture. He’s incredible. Then I will go — honestly, Shawn Michaels is up there. And learning from him in WWE, that put him on a whole another playing field for me. Edge, Adam Copeland. Phenomenal, like incredible. Rey Mysterio, Phenomenal, incredible. And Jericho. Jericho is my guy. And like we did music together as well. Got to open up for him and his band Fozzy. So like, all these guys are like — well, most of them are like very much crossover, cross-cultural talents in a lot of ways. Like, Jericho in music and then acting. Same with Edge.”
On not having The Rock and Steve Austin on his list:
“Those guys didn’t influence me in the ring. As far as like, those guys were — I knew what their impact on the wrestling business was, but those guys [his top five] made me want to get up and actually get in the ring. They have a lot of influence in what I do in the ring. Just, it made me want to become a wrestler. They made me — I study more tape on those guys than anybody, I would say.”
On Ric Flair:
“I will say, after I came back from a promo at AEW, I did it live in the ring and stuff. I came to the back, he was the first one. He was like, ‘That’s how you rip the mic, brother.’ I was like, ‘Yo.’ From Ric, that’s like the highest — that’s the highest praise you can get from one of the best ever do.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
