January 3, 2024 • 21 mins
On our final episode of the season, we go all in, and we chat with AEW superstar Swerve Strickland about his rise to stardom, his feuds and matches, and his “Real Heel” persona. Swerve tells us how he stays true to himself, how he deals with the fans and the critics, and what his goals are for the future. Don’t miss this exclusive and candid conversation with one of the most exciting and authentic wrestlers in the business.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
And now your mate event.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Introducing the hosts, I'm Wrestling with Freddy Chef d Han
of Fredys Junior. Welcome to a brand new episode of
Wrestling with Freddy Wrestling with Friends. We're not gonna do
any goofy news intros because we have a guest that
I've been wanting to speak to for a very long time.
(00:24):
Our producer reached out, got this done, and then our
producer wrote this intro for the man, and it deserves
like a better voice than mine. So I'm going to
do the documentary guy voice, and I hope our guest
likes it, and if not, I didn't write it, but
I think it's awesome. Here we go, emerging from the shadows,
his eyes burning with an unwavering intensity, Swerve Strickland is
(00:47):
a force to be reckoned with in the squared circle.
This electrifying athlete is more than just a wrestler. He's
an artist, a storyteller, and a captivating presence that leaves
fans breathless. With a background steeped in the independence, could
Strickland honed his craft and promotions like CZW and Evolve,
capturing titles and leaving a trail of awe inspiring performances
(01:08):
in his wake. He burst onto the national scene in
twenty twenty, joining the ranks of WWE's NXT brand, but
Swerve's hunger for a larger canvas led him to All
Elite Wrestling, and here he has truly unleashed his potential.
He joined forces with the powerful Keith Lee Is swerving
our glory, dominated the tag team division, captured the coveted
(01:28):
AW World Tag Team Championship. But Swerve is not one
to rest on his laurels. He's hungry for individual glory,
and his sites are firmly set on the top prize
in ae W Man, A lot of that shit was true.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Facts, I would know all of it is.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Welcome to the show Man. It's a pleasure to have you.
Thanks for being our guest. We appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
No man, thank you for having me. Man seriously, like
appreciate all that. Like it's really cool to hear it,
like in a interesting way like that, like you know
what this sounded, even if it's bullshit, like that sounds.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Pretty that was real. That's how we feel.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Also, sure if you should know that I'm on this
podcast every week and they just go and with me.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Is Jeff.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
That's a way better intro you got.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Maybe I'll write something for Jeff.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I like that. He deserves it.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
He first things first, And this is going to be
a random question, but I heard we have something in
common besides wrestling. You're a horror fan. I'm a horror fan.
I have a podcast about horror movies. I nerd out
on it so much.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
What's it.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I'm sure you don't have one favorite. You probably have
ten favorites. But what's one horror movie that everybody needs
to see?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Man? I'll start with like the most recent one that
I think, like it's pretty well known right now. But
actually the first one I'll talk about is Night of
the Missing. I just I had a part in that one.
It just came out on Amazon, is number one on
screen Box TV, actually on the screen Box app if
you're a big horror fan. So check that out. And
Out of the Missing worked with Matthew Hirsch and Samuel
(02:57):
Gonzalez Junior on that. Very cool, very cool. Yeah, So
that just came out. We spilled that a year ago
and it just came out in November, end of November,
So go check that out for one, you know, so
may burst on the scene with my acting chops. And
then I will say, like, as the most recent film
I watched, I think like everybody should be checking out
is talk to Me. Talk Yes. Very innovative stuff, very
(03:20):
innovative stuff, and very original.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
What they did with that hand and basically turning that
hand into a party drug that everybody can partake in
was so slick and so smart. And I'm forty seven
years old. I was not the demographic for this movie.
Like in the beginning, I'm like, oh, that music's so loud,
But as soon as the acting started and the story started,
I was just like, Yo, this is good. Like teen
(03:46):
Hordes a sick horror movie.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, talk to me, Ray.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Alt media is now mainstream. It's a good time to
be into any of those things. And if you're justin
long in a horror movie, bad things are going to
happen to you. Talk to me about this journey that
you've on at aew where it started bringing people in
working with other people, and now all of a sudden,
you're the focus of this story that was reminiscent of
(04:11):
the Attitude era back in the day with Adam Hangman
Page and then you do this match and I'm telling
you right now, I'm soft.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
As soon as I had kids, I never wanted to
skydive again. And bloody matches made me cringe because I
hate seeing people that sometimes I worked with and like
wrote for, I hate to see them bleed, right, I
just don't. I don't want to see that. You had
a match that I couldn't take my eyes off of.
And I've described wrestling a lot as the literal blood, sweat,
(04:42):
and tears on an actual canvas, right, and this was
everything that I love about wrestling in a match that
I normally would cringe and look away from in terror
because it's real blood, And instead I could not take
my eyes off this match. How the hell did you
(05:03):
to pull this story and this climax off? Man?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
We started off, like I'm pretty sure like you've gone
through writing the same way you start off with motive.
Why do I want to take it to this level?
Why do we want to need to elevate It's almost
like an elevated horror sense of just painting the broad
canvas of it. You know, you have your high points
and you have your points where you're like, we kind
(05:27):
of had to erase a lot of wrestling tropes in
a sense, it's now like, oh, he's the good guy,
but he's doing that, he's the bad guy. He's doing that.
It's like, no, this is a man needing to get
revenge on another man who did a bad thing. So
it's like we kind of start off with just like boom,
just that. Now, what are the things that make that
person tick? What makes that person like, what drives the
(05:52):
anger out of someone who is on the defensive, what
drives the anger out to someone who's on the offensive.
What is the switches that turn things around? That was
the beauty of like starting this whole thing off with
the promos between me and hey man Page. I dressed
him down and showcased all his weaknesses. I put it
(06:12):
all out there on display. And now people like people
have seen him already for like four years in aw
but now as people are like, wow, I feel like
I know him now. I addressed the person you know,
and I then I kind of like went through like
you know what, I see all this everybody's nobody's saying it.
(06:33):
I'm going to say it to you to your face.
I'm not going to do it from the stage to
you in the ring. I'm not going to do it
over the promo that's up here and then you're down here. No,
I'm going to address you to your face because Swerve
isn't in a coward. Swerve is going to come to
you and say it. That's what kind of makes me
a dangerous threat. I'm not going to hide. I'm going
(06:55):
to say it to your face. And that's the thing
about like a lot of tropes in wrestling. And he's like,
oh man, you said it to his face, and he
kind of that promo ends and they just walk away.
I'm like, why would you walk away from someone? Like? No,
Like you're saying all these things, you know what I mean,
it's like those things. So it's like, as a human being,
you kind of feel a lot of the things, and
so therefore, when the violence started occurring, you felt for
(07:19):
the person taking the violence and the person inflicting it. Therefore,
you instead of just seeing two wrestlers bludgeoning each other,
it didn't feel like a match anymore. It felt like
somebody has to try to survive this, so how does
he get away from this? And it kind of I
kind of took a lot of things from like hostile
I took some things from like even like a Halloween
(07:41):
of like walking through pain because you're just so enraged
and stuff like that. There was a lot of things
that just like I would say, with Hangman, it was
like this is this is like our ghost Rider. Now
he's like if you notice, like he kind of went
from like the cowboy wearing the nice stars and the
dazzle jeans. Now he's like but from like we were
(08:05):
so polar opposite from the first promo we did, like
he's wearing like a blue cowboy shirt with like stars,
and he's had his hair hair and a ponytail man
bun and stuff like that. By the time we got
to the second promo where he dresses me down, he
looks like me now, wearing like more similar than ever.
Like I'm wearing black leather and black pants. He's wearing
(08:25):
black leather and black pants, hairs out. I was like,
I pulled that out of you. So I won as
the bad person anyway, whether I win or lose, I
got the Hangman that I was asking for. I got
cowboys shit back, and now the fans are filling out
like the fan base was supposed to feel for Swerve.
It's like oh man, this guy's cool. He's dressing like, yeah,
(08:46):
you're supposed to feel for me. But Hayman has to
win the fans back. That was the entire plot of
this whole thing, and by the time we did that
promo right before going into the Texas Deathmatch, he won
the fans back.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I haven't heard anyone break down and describe the build
up the way you have, except when I worked at
WW years ago and I got to work with Edge,
and that's how he talks about matches is intent and motive,
And motive was the first thing you said. Intent was
the damn second thing you said. And he talked about
(09:28):
having a motive, you know, in everything, not just the promos,
but in every move that you do in there outside
of the you know, the stuff that you of course
you got you gotta get there, but even that. He
wants to tell a story with and you break things
down in a really really similar way. You guys know
each other.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Right, Yeah, Well he's been my mentor, i'd say for
the last two to three years ever since I met
him in NXC.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Oh well, well that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
He was like, he's very generous with his information and
he was the first one to really like break down
the fall to be wrestling, because when I got there,
I just knew how to write a monologue of promore.
I could I could tell I could write something that
would make people get hyped, but that was it. I
didn't know how to build a match. And he really
broke that shit down almost the exact way that you
(10:15):
just broke broke down you and hangman Page, I had
goosebumps like twice when you were telling that, man, it
was crazy. It was like looking at it, thank you
a second, No, that's wild. You really broke it down perfectly.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Another guy that really like brought that same type of
mentality to me, but put it in the inn rings
sense I was. I was credit to people for this,
like definitely Cope Adam Copeland for like as far as
like promoing and characters and stuff like that, because we
share like content with like sending each other YouTube videos
and breakdowns of characters and what this color means of
(10:46):
this suit, why he wore it this way, what this
means the like the polarities of certain characters and all
those things. So we share content but like with that
all the time. But then it was Terry Taylor, who
really taught me how to be in the ring, how
to bring that in the ring and showcase the person,
Like you have to showcase that you're a person and
(11:08):
the feel of it before it gets to just action
and fighting and moves and spots and running jumping and
diving and stuff. It's like like, Okay, cool, but you
did that. Now show me why you how your character
feels about what you just did. Now show the camera
how you feel about what you just accomplished. I see
(11:29):
you do that.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I see you do that when you point it guys
and let them know, Yo, I just got that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Off on your Yeah. I love that. That's the next level, right,
And that's like those It's like it's kind of like
small little tidbits, but after a while it adds up,
and then you do it again the next week, and
then you do it again the next week, and then
you do it again the next week. Then you do
it again next week. Now the fan base is connected
to you because they see all the like I feel
(11:55):
like I feel like that too. Oh man, I've had
a feeling like that too, or like even like compared
to an one basketball, when you shake someone, you got
them laying on the ground, you'd like, ah, you like win.
I've been in that position. I've fallen on the floor.
So now they can kind of the fans and whoever's
watching at home can kind of relate to, like, I've
been in that situation before, So now I'm connected to
(12:17):
that ceiling rather than a fan to seeing like a
crazy acrobatic move. They don't connect to that because they've
never had that done to them. I don't know what, like,
the common person watching at home does not know what
it feels like to take a big flipping power bomb
boom because they never had that before. But they know
how it feels to get punched in the face and
laughed at because it's happened to somebody, either them or
(12:40):
they watched it on World Star or they had they've
been to a barbecue of party or a fight, and
they've watched somebody that happened to somebody. So now it's
related to them a little more because it's a little
bit more real.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Jeff, I've hogged all the time, super sorry, but but
please jump in.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
But I do want him to know and I want
the viewers will vouch for this that we're not being
cute boys, just because you're on, just because you're with us,
we are huge fans. I've been a big ass Mark
the whole season just talking about you.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I think you're a huge star.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
You're gonna be one of the biggest wrestlers ever, and
I'm glad that people are starting to notice it.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
The point that you guys are just referencing.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I don't think it's any Quinns.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
The coincidence that the point reminds me of Sean camp
Duncan on Alton Lister back in the day when he
give them the big the Duncan and the point. You
are from Tacoma, Washington. I am from Kent, Washington. We
are two five to three boys. Are you a big
are a big Seattle sports guys?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I am actually a La Rams fan the slash Jaguars, So.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
My son will have another reason to love you. Yeah, said,
I'm a Raiders fan. My son like Raiders, oh Man
slash Jaguars.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
You're all over the map. We have sports teams where
we're from.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Wait a minute, don't take any lip off, Jeff. I've
seen this guy wear twenty seven different baseball hats from
twenty seven different teams'.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
That is to thirty different. Yeah, I'm a big Mariners fan,
but I do wear all the hats, all right. That
wasn't the question I wanted to ask. What I did
want to ask is because I imagine you've loved wrestling your
entire life the way we have. Most of the wrestlers
your age and our age are they grew up watching it?
What does it feel like Explain it to maybe a
guy like me when you get your first Action figure,
(14:24):
or when you get when you see yourself on the
video game, or when you see it's.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Like I can put myself in a match on PlayStation,
Like it's so cool, Like what is that?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Like? What was it like? The first man, I'll never
get just stepping into the booths for the two K
scan and like getting all those pictures. I'll never forget
that day. That was That was awesome. It was like
at the time, it was like me carrying across at Scarlett.
We're the ones stepping in to get our scans, and
we were like, oh, this is it. This is it
was you step in here, We're more in line forever.
(14:56):
So it was really cool. I didn't even think I
was going to make the cut on the game, because
I think it was like the ninety day I got released,
and then I was on the ninety days and I
was like, I'm probably not gonna be like wiped out
of the game, but They're like, no, they kept it,
and they kept me as North American Champion going into
the game starting the game off on top of that,
so I was like, oh, I guess somebody still likes me.
(15:17):
I didn't piss anybody else.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, the developers knew you were a star, but.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
It was it was really cool experiences. The craziest thing
about the game, Like I saved it on my IG
so as like one of those story things, so I
always go back to show that to somebody. It's really cool.
Like walking the entrance, the commentary is talking about the
Sore City podcast actually on the way to the ring
in the game, so I was like, that's cool. So
I got like kind of like a thread of different
(15:44):
my media is in there at the same time. So
it was really it was really interesting stuff. I was.
I was blown away.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Of course, if I had an action figure out every target,
I wouldn't be able to not go in there and
buy it every single time, just to to the people
that worked there, like I've got an action figure, like
I can't it's such a cool thing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I just put it through this through the scanner and
they were like scanning, like wait a minute, Like yeah,
that's me, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Tell me about the swerft City podcast.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Speres City podcast is something that we came with. Me
and my co host Montez, came up with like twenty seventeen.
I moved down to Florida at the time, and Montez
was he was doing entrance music themes for the wrestlers
and we met like maybe a two years prior at
a mcw and independence show and he was always a
(16:42):
fan of my work and I've seen his work final
I was like, oh man, that's dope. So I moved
down to Florida. He asked to be to interview me,
so I was like, okay, cool, So I came down.
I loved his interview style. It's very personable. He had
like notes and stuff and he's like, no what, I'm
just gonna go on the fly. He just crumbled it up,
through it out though, through it out of the screen.
It's like, let's just vie man. And we just talked
like for an hour on Thos on his interview and
(17:04):
I was like, you know what, maybe we could do
like uh, I like the way you do this, want
to do something together. You're like, oh sure. So we
came up with we went to High Spots. We got
a couple of episodes on the High Spots DVD filmed
by Sammy Callahan. Those were up they're still up there
on for sale. Then we're like, let's do I want
to do more. Let's let's see what it was who
can do? So we like kind of do it with
like ig Live, just like yeah, yeah, messing around with stuff,
(17:27):
just feeling it out on two bean bags. No wall,
nothing here, just bean bags. Then they went to bring
his friend in who can actually actually had a camera
and could edit. Then we started getting some of my
friends on. Then I got signed to NXT and stuff
like that. Then it got Then COVID happened, and that's
I think COVID. We benefited from that mostly because everybody's
(17:48):
coming down to Florida to just sit in hotels or
go to do the SmackDown wrong and whatever in the
same place. So I was like, hey, kofy want to
come to our podcast. It's like sure, I'm not doing nothing.
So Kofe would come do the podcast. Hey Bailey, want
to come to our podcast? Sure, yeah, absolutely. Then like
(18:09):
Drew mcintarre won the Rumble then went on to win
the world title at WrestleMania, So I was like, hey, Drew,
he was like sure, no problem, and that would end
up being the first episode of The swartsa podcast on
the ww network. So we got leveled up every time
just because we me and me and my teez. He's
(18:30):
like the artist, I'm the wrestler, but then he turned
me to the artist at the same time. So we
kind of like had like a lot of polar similarities
to media, music, and wrestling, and we find ways to
like bring it all together while discussing certain things and
topics and like what's going on in the world and
media and Hollywood and music and stuff, and bring out
(18:52):
a little bit more personality out of the wrestlers and
performers and stuff. So it grew to some to the
fact that we're just bring in like Pat McAfee and yeah,
coming up, Yeah, coming up. We got Dominic Wilkins. That's great.
So so and then we started traveling, getting on the road.
It was like, Hey, we're gonna go up to Atlanta,
and interview music Soul Child in the studio. I'm like, yes, okay, cool.
(19:16):
So it was always about competition with me and Tez
was like, well I got so and So. Well, yeah,
I just got an email from so and so we
got him. Okay, that's a dope, guess I don't know
how you did that, but I'm gonna talk that. I'm
gonna get Tony Kahan. Oh snap, that's a good one.
So I'm gonna get so and so so if they
It came like a little friendly battle between who can
(19:37):
get the most guests play guess what we both grow
from whoever wins. No, there's no losers in it, and
that's kind of how the Sourcy Podcast kind of grew.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Well, if you ever need a guest, man, I'm happy
to jump in there for you, dude.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Without a doubt, Please come through. Man. No, you you
helped us out.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I'm happy to return the favor.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Man.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Go ahead, Jeff, where would you put Swerve City if
there ever became one?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And that the goal?
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Is there going to be a Swerve city?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Is that your future plans?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So if you look at the logo, there's actually buildings
and landmarks from Seattle.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Actually you're trying to turn what is already known as
Seattle into swerve City.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
I mean, yeah, I'm trying to still stay dedicated, you know.
I like that.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
We could use some new management in Seattle.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I'll tell you what. At this point, my theme music
is playing at the Krakend Stadium. So it's slowly but
surely like Swerve City. That's going to be the national
ahead film or something.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I love it. Yeah, all right, you guys, we're gonna
go a little deeper into the conversation here and talk
about some other stuff on the unsanctioned Thursdays. We thank
you guys for listening, Thank you for tuning in. Come
tune in tomorrow where maybe we get a little more serious.
We'll see till then. Thank you very much for listening.
This is Wrestling with Freddie Wrestling with Friends Peace. This
(20:57):
has been a production of Iheartsmichael Toura podcast Network. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
And now your mate event.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Introducing the hosts, I'm Wrestling with Freddy Chef d Han
of Fredys Junior. Welcome to a brand new episode of
Wrestling with Freddy Wrestling with Friends. We're not gonna do
any goofy news intros because we have a guest that
I've been wanting to speak to for a very long time.
(00:24):
Our producer reached out, got this done, and then our
producer wrote this intro for the man, and it deserves
like a better voice than mine. So I'm going to
do the documentary guy voice, and I hope our guest
likes it, and if not, I didn't write it, but
I think it's awesome. Here we go, emerging from the shadows,
his eyes burning with an unwavering intensity, Swerve Strickland is
(00:47):
a force to be reckoned with in the squared circle.
This electrifying athlete is more than just a wrestler. He's
an artist, a storyteller, and a captivating presence that leaves
fans breathless. With a background steeped in the independence, could
Strickland honed his craft and promotions like CZW and Evolve,
capturing titles and leaving a trail of awe inspiring performances
(01:08):
in his wake. He burst onto the national scene in
twenty twenty, joining the ranks of WWE's NXT brand, but
Swerve's hunger for a larger canvas led him to All
Elite Wrestling, and here he has truly unleashed his potential.
He joined forces with the powerful Keith Lee Is swerving
our glory, dominated the tag team division, captured the coveted
(01:28):
AW World Tag Team Championship. But Swerve is not one
to rest on his laurels. He's hungry for individual glory,
and his sites are firmly set on the top prize
in ae W Man, A lot of that shit was true.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Facts, I would know all of it is.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Welcome to the show Man. It's a pleasure to have you.
Thanks for being our guest. We appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
No man, thank you for having me. Man seriously, like
appreciate all that. Like it's really cool to hear it,
like in a interesting way like that, like you know
what this sounded, even if it's bullshit, like that sounds.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Pretty that was real. That's how we feel.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Also, sure if you should know that I'm on this
podcast every week and they just go and with me.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Is Jeff.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
That's a way better intro you got.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Maybe I'll write something for Jeff.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I like that. He deserves it.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
He first things first, And this is going to be
a random question, but I heard we have something in
common besides wrestling. You're a horror fan. I'm a horror fan.
I have a podcast about horror movies. I nerd out
on it so much.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
What's it.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I'm sure you don't have one favorite. You probably have
ten favorites. But what's one horror movie that everybody needs
to see?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Man? I'll start with like the most recent one that
I think, like it's pretty well known right now. But
actually the first one I'll talk about is Night of
the Missing. I just I had a part in that one.
It just came out on Amazon, is number one on
screen Box TV, actually on the screen Box app if
you're a big horror fan. So check that out. And
Out of the Missing worked with Matthew Hirsch and Samuel
(02:57):
Gonzalez Junior on that. Very cool, very cool. Yeah, So
that just came out. We spilled that a year ago
and it just came out in November, end of November,
So go check that out for one, you know, so
may burst on the scene with my acting chops. And
then I will say, like, as the most recent film
I watched, I think like everybody should be checking out
is talk to Me. Talk Yes. Very innovative stuff, very
(03:20):
innovative stuff, and very original.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
What they did with that hand and basically turning that
hand into a party drug that everybody can partake in
was so slick and so smart. And I'm forty seven
years old. I was not the demographic for this movie.
Like in the beginning, I'm like, oh, that music's so loud,
But as soon as the acting started and the story started,
I was just like, Yo, this is good. Like teen
(03:46):
Hordes a sick horror movie.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, talk to me, Ray.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Alt media is now mainstream. It's a good time to
be into any of those things. And if you're justin
long in a horror movie, bad things are going to
happen to you. Talk to me about this journey that
you've on at aew where it started bringing people in
working with other people, and now all of a sudden,
you're the focus of this story that was reminiscent of
(04:11):
the Attitude era back in the day with Adam Hangman
Page and then you do this match and I'm telling
you right now, I'm soft.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
As soon as I had kids, I never wanted to
skydive again. And bloody matches made me cringe because I
hate seeing people that sometimes I worked with and like
wrote for, I hate to see them bleed, right, I
just don't. I don't want to see that. You had
a match that I couldn't take my eyes off of.
And I've described wrestling a lot as the literal blood, sweat,
(04:42):
and tears on an actual canvas, right, and this was
everything that I love about wrestling in a match that
I normally would cringe and look away from in terror
because it's real blood, And instead I could not take
my eyes off this match. How the hell did you
(05:03):
to pull this story and this climax off? Man?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
We started off, like I'm pretty sure like you've gone
through writing the same way you start off with motive.
Why do I want to take it to this level?
Why do we want to need to elevate It's almost
like an elevated horror sense of just painting the broad
canvas of it. You know, you have your high points
and you have your points where you're like, we kind
(05:27):
of had to erase a lot of wrestling tropes in
a sense, it's now like, oh, he's the good guy,
but he's doing that, he's the bad guy. He's doing that.
It's like, no, this is a man needing to get
revenge on another man who did a bad thing. So
it's like we kind of start off with just like boom,
just that. Now, what are the things that make that
person tick? What makes that person like, what drives the
(05:52):
anger out of someone who is on the defensive, what
drives the anger out to someone who's on the offensive.
What is the switches that turn things around? That was
the beauty of like starting this whole thing off with
the promos between me and hey man Page. I dressed
him down and showcased all his weaknesses. I put it
(06:12):
all out there on display. And now people like people
have seen him already for like four years in aw
but now as people are like, wow, I feel like
I know him now. I addressed the person you know,
and I then I kind of like went through like
you know what, I see all this everybody's nobody's saying it.
(06:33):
I'm going to say it to you to your face.
I'm not going to do it from the stage to
you in the ring. I'm not going to do it
over the promo that's up here and then you're down here. No,
I'm going to address you to your face because Swerve
isn't in a coward. Swerve is going to come to
you and say it. That's what kind of makes me
a dangerous threat. I'm not going to hide. I'm going
(06:55):
to say it to your face. And that's the thing
about like a lot of tropes in wrestling. And he's like,
oh man, you said it to his face, and he
kind of that promo ends and they just walk away.
I'm like, why would you walk away from someone? Like? No,
Like you're saying all these things, you know what I mean,
it's like those things. So it's like, as a human being,
you kind of feel a lot of the things, and
so therefore, when the violence started occurring, you felt for
(07:19):
the person taking the violence and the person inflicting it. Therefore,
you instead of just seeing two wrestlers bludgeoning each other,
it didn't feel like a match anymore. It felt like
somebody has to try to survive this, so how does
he get away from this? And it kind of I
kind of took a lot of things from like hostile
I took some things from like even like a Halloween
(07:41):
of like walking through pain because you're just so enraged
and stuff like that. There was a lot of things
that just like I would say, with Hangman, it was
like this is this is like our ghost Rider. Now
he's like if you notice, like he kind of went
from like the cowboy wearing the nice stars and the
dazzle jeans. Now he's like but from like we were
(08:05):
so polar opposite from the first promo we did, like
he's wearing like a blue cowboy shirt with like stars,
and he's had his hair hair and a ponytail man
bun and stuff like that. By the time we got
to the second promo where he dresses me down, he
looks like me now, wearing like more similar than ever.
Like I'm wearing black leather and black pants. He's wearing
(08:25):
black leather and black pants, hairs out. I was like,
I pulled that out of you. So I won as
the bad person anyway, whether I win or lose, I
got the Hangman that I was asking for. I got
cowboys shit back, and now the fans are filling out
like the fan base was supposed to feel for Swerve.
It's like oh man, this guy's cool. He's dressing like, yeah,
(08:46):
you're supposed to feel for me. But Hayman has to
win the fans back. That was the entire plot of
this whole thing, and by the time we did that
promo right before going into the Texas Deathmatch, he won
the fans back.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I haven't heard anyone break down and describe the build
up the way you have, except when I worked at
WW years ago and I got to work with Edge,
and that's how he talks about matches is intent and motive,
And motive was the first thing you said. Intent was
the damn second thing you said. And he talked about
(09:28):
having a motive, you know, in everything, not just the promos,
but in every move that you do in there outside
of the you know, the stuff that you of course
you got you gotta get there, but even that. He
wants to tell a story with and you break things
down in a really really similar way. You guys know
each other.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Right, Yeah, Well he's been my mentor, i'd say for
the last two to three years ever since I met
him in NXC.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Oh well, well that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
He was like, he's very generous with his information and
he was the first one to really like break down
the fall to be wrestling, because when I got there,
I just knew how to write a monologue of promore.
I could I could tell I could write something that
would make people get hyped, but that was it. I
didn't know how to build a match. And he really
broke that shit down almost the exact way that you
(10:15):
just broke broke down you and hangman Page, I had
goosebumps like twice when you were telling that, man, it
was crazy. It was like looking at it, thank you
a second, No, that's wild. You really broke it down perfectly.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Another guy that really like brought that same type of
mentality to me, but put it in the inn rings
sense I was. I was credit to people for this,
like definitely Cope Adam Copeland for like as far as
like promoing and characters and stuff like that, because we
share like content with like sending each other YouTube videos
and breakdowns of characters and what this color means of
(10:46):
this suit, why he wore it this way, what this
means the like the polarities of certain characters and all
those things. So we share content but like with that
all the time. But then it was Terry Taylor, who
really taught me how to be in the ring, how
to bring that in the ring and showcase the person,
Like you have to showcase that you're a person and
(11:08):
the feel of it before it gets to just action
and fighting and moves and spots and running jumping and
diving and stuff. It's like like, Okay, cool, but you
did that. Now show me why you how your character
feels about what you just did. Now show the camera
how you feel about what you just accomplished. I see
(11:29):
you do that.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I see you do that when you point it guys
and let them know, Yo, I just got that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Off on your Yeah. I love that. That's the next level, right,
And that's like those It's like it's kind of like
small little tidbits, but after a while it adds up,
and then you do it again the next week, and
then you do it again the next week, and then
you do it again the next week. Then you do
it again next week. Now the fan base is connected
to you because they see all the like I feel
(11:55):
like I feel like that too. Oh man, I've had
a feeling like that too, or like even like compared
to an one basketball, when you shake someone, you got
them laying on the ground, you'd like, ah, you like win.
I've been in that position. I've fallen on the floor.
So now they can kind of the fans and whoever's
watching at home can kind of relate to, like, I've
been in that situation before, So now I'm connected to
(12:17):
that ceiling rather than a fan to seeing like a
crazy acrobatic move. They don't connect to that because they've
never had that done to them. I don't know what, like,
the common person watching at home does not know what
it feels like to take a big flipping power bomb
boom because they never had that before. But they know
how it feels to get punched in the face and
laughed at because it's happened to somebody, either them or
(12:40):
they watched it on World Star or they had they've
been to a barbecue of party or a fight, and
they've watched somebody that happened to somebody. So now it's
related to them a little more because it's a little
bit more real.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Jeff, I've hogged all the time, super sorry, but but
please jump in.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
But I do want him to know and I want
the viewers will vouch for this that we're not being
cute boys, just because you're on, just because you're with us,
we are huge fans. I've been a big ass Mark
the whole season just talking about you.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I think you're a huge star.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
You're gonna be one of the biggest wrestlers ever, and
I'm glad that people are starting to notice it.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
The point that you guys are just referencing.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I don't think it's any Quinns.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
The coincidence that the point reminds me of Sean camp
Duncan on Alton Lister back in the day when he
give them the big the Duncan and the point. You
are from Tacoma, Washington. I am from Kent, Washington. We
are two five to three boys. Are you a big
are a big Seattle sports guys?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I am actually a La Rams fan the slash Jaguars, So.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
My son will have another reason to love you. Yeah, said,
I'm a Raiders fan. My son like Raiders, oh Man
slash Jaguars.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
You're all over the map. We have sports teams where
we're from.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Wait a minute, don't take any lip off, Jeff. I've
seen this guy wear twenty seven different baseball hats from
twenty seven different teams'.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
That is to thirty different. Yeah, I'm a big Mariners fan,
but I do wear all the hats, all right. That
wasn't the question I wanted to ask. What I did
want to ask is because I imagine you've loved wrestling your
entire life the way we have. Most of the wrestlers
your age and our age are they grew up watching it?
What does it feel like Explain it to maybe a
guy like me when you get your first Action figure,
(14:24):
or when you get when you see yourself on the
video game, or when you see it's.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Like I can put myself in a match on PlayStation,
Like it's so cool, Like what is that?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Like? What was it like? The first man, I'll never
get just stepping into the booths for the two K
scan and like getting all those pictures. I'll never forget
that day. That was That was awesome. It was like
at the time, it was like me carrying across at Scarlett.
We're the ones stepping in to get our scans, and
we were like, oh, this is it. This is it
was you step in here, We're more in line forever.
(14:56):
So it was really cool. I didn't even think I
was going to make the cut on the game, because
I think it was like the ninety day I got released,
and then I was on the ninety days and I
was like, I'm probably not gonna be like wiped out
of the game, but They're like, no, they kept it,
and they kept me as North American Champion going into
the game starting the game off on top of that,
so I was like, oh, I guess somebody still likes me.
(15:17):
I didn't piss anybody else.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, the developers knew you were a star, but.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
It was it was really cool experiences. The craziest thing
about the game, Like I saved it on my IG
so as like one of those story things, so I
always go back to show that to somebody. It's really cool.
Like walking the entrance, the commentary is talking about the
Sore City podcast actually on the way to the ring
in the game, so I was like, that's cool. So
I got like kind of like a thread of different
(15:44):
my media is in there at the same time. So
it was really it was really interesting stuff. I was.
I was blown away.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Of course, if I had an action figure out every target,
I wouldn't be able to not go in there and
buy it every single time, just to to the people
that worked there, like I've got an action figure, like
I can't it's such a cool thing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I just put it through this through the scanner and
they were like scanning, like wait a minute, Like yeah,
that's me, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Tell me about the swerft City podcast.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Speres City podcast is something that we came with. Me
and my co host Montez, came up with like twenty seventeen.
I moved down to Florida at the time, and Montez
was he was doing entrance music themes for the wrestlers
and we met like maybe a two years prior at
a mcw and independence show and he was always a
(16:42):
fan of my work and I've seen his work final
I was like, oh man, that's dope. So I moved
down to Florida. He asked to be to interview me,
so I was like, okay, cool, So I came down.
I loved his interview style. It's very personable. He had
like notes and stuff and he's like, no what, I'm
just gonna go on the fly. He just crumbled it up,
through it out though, through it out of the screen.
It's like, let's just vie man. And we just talked
like for an hour on Thos on his interview and
(17:04):
I was like, you know what, maybe we could do
like uh, I like the way you do this, want
to do something together. You're like, oh sure. So we
came up with we went to High Spots. We got
a couple of episodes on the High Spots DVD filmed
by Sammy Callahan. Those were up they're still up there
on for sale. Then we're like, let's do I want
to do more. Let's let's see what it was who
can do? So we like kind of do it with
like ig Live, just like yeah, yeah, messing around with stuff,
(17:27):
just feeling it out on two bean bags. No wall,
nothing here, just bean bags. Then they went to bring
his friend in who can actually actually had a camera
and could edit. Then we started getting some of my
friends on. Then I got signed to NXT and stuff
like that. Then it got Then COVID happened, and that's
I think COVID. We benefited from that mostly because everybody's
(17:48):
coming down to Florida to just sit in hotels or
go to do the SmackDown wrong and whatever in the
same place. So I was like, hey, kofy want to
come to our podcast. It's like sure, I'm not doing nothing.
So Kofe would come do the podcast. Hey Bailey, want
to come to our podcast? Sure, yeah, absolutely. Then like
(18:09):
Drew mcintarre won the Rumble then went on to win
the world title at WrestleMania, So I was like, hey, Drew,
he was like sure, no problem, and that would end
up being the first episode of The swartsa podcast on
the ww network. So we got leveled up every time
just because we me and me and my teez. He's
(18:30):
like the artist, I'm the wrestler, but then he turned
me to the artist at the same time. So we
kind of like had like a lot of polar similarities
to media, music, and wrestling, and we find ways to
like bring it all together while discussing certain things and
topics and like what's going on in the world and
media and Hollywood and music and stuff, and bring out
(18:52):
a little bit more personality out of the wrestlers and
performers and stuff. So it grew to some to the
fact that we're just bring in like Pat McAfee and yeah,
coming up, Yeah, coming up. We got Dominic Wilkins. That's great.
So so and then we started traveling, getting on the road.
It was like, Hey, we're gonna go up to Atlanta,
and interview music Soul Child in the studio. I'm like, yes, okay, cool.
(19:16):
So it was always about competition with me and Tez
was like, well I got so and So. Well, yeah,
I just got an email from so and so we
got him. Okay, that's a dope, guess I don't know
how you did that, but I'm gonna talk that. I'm
gonna get Tony Kahan. Oh snap, that's a good one.
So I'm gonna get so and so so if they
It came like a little friendly battle between who can
(19:37):
get the most guests play guess what we both grow
from whoever wins. No, there's no losers in it, and
that's kind of how the Sourcy Podcast kind of grew.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Well, if you ever need a guest, man, I'm happy
to jump in there for you, dude.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Without a doubt, Please come through. Man. No, you you
helped us out.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I'm happy to return the favor.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Man.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Go ahead, Jeff, where would you put Swerve City if
there ever became one?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And that the goal?
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Is there going to be a Swerve city?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Is that your future plans?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So if you look at the logo, there's actually buildings
and landmarks from Seattle.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Actually you're trying to turn what is already known as
Seattle into swerve City.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
I mean, yeah, I'm trying to still stay dedicated, you know.
I like that.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
We could use some new management in Seattle.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I'll tell you what. At this point, my theme music
is playing at the Krakend Stadium. So it's slowly but
surely like Swerve City. That's going to be the national
ahead film or something.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I love it. Yeah, all right, you guys, we're gonna
go a little deeper into the conversation here and talk
about some other stuff on the unsanctioned Thursdays. We thank
you guys for listening, Thank you for tuning in. Come
tune in tomorrow where maybe we get a little more serious.
We'll see till then. Thank you very much for listening.
This is Wrestling with Freddie Wrestling with Friends Peace. This
(20:57):
has been a production of Iheartsmichael Toura podcast Network. For
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