Swerve Strickland has opened up about his decision to team with Kofi and Austin Creed following their surprise AEW debut at All In: London.
Kofi and Creed debuted as The New Level during the Trios Roulette Royale, joining forces with Strickland and capturing the AEW World Trios Championship on their first night with the company.
Speaking with Black Couch Booking, Swerve explained that he wanted his partners to bring something completely new to AEW rather than simply selecting wrestlers who were already part of the locker room.
“I was like, if I’m going to go into this, it has to be new. It has to be fresh. It has to be a moment with guys that hasn’t been here before. Ricochet talking about that there aren’t too many guys in the locker room that like me. They feel just as much hatred towards me as the rest of the guys and the people that I have these feuds with over the last couple years. It can’t be anybody from the locker room. I have to go through outsourcing to get some new, you know, teammates. But it has to be something that’s like, you look at it, it’s something you didn’t know is what you wanted, but now that you see it, it’s like, man, how did we not see this? And some people who, in the end, you want to, like, shake the doubt of the people that already like going to have negativity towards it, like, ‘Man, it’s not Big E. It’s not Big E.’ And shout out Big E. I can never replace a Big E. But we can do something new that moves forward instead of looking backwards. And that’s why New Level, the track and stuff like that. All these things just hit at the right time, at the right place, with the right people to, like, put a shockwave into the energy of the wrestling world all in at one encapsulating time.”
Swerve acknowledged that some fans would inevitably compare the new trio to The New Day, particularly because Big E is not involved. However, he stressed that the intention isn’t to replace Big E or recreate what Kofi and Creed previously had in WWE.
Instead, Swerve sees the partnership as an opportunity for all three men to move forward with something new, with the New Level identity and entrance music helping establish a fresh direction.
That approach immediately paid off at Wembley Stadium, with Swerve, Kofi and Creed winning the AEW World Trios Championship in their first match together.
