Original Artwork The Xavierite
For most professional wrestlers, music is simply just another part of their presentation. However, for All Elite Wrestling’s (AEW) Swerve Strickland, music has an influence in almost every aspect of his career.
When you think of music in pro-wrestling, you may automatically see a snippet in your head of an iconic wrestling theme song playing as a wrestler makes their entrance. Whether it be the visual of Triple H spitting water as Motorhead’s “The Game” plays, or John Cena running to the ring as the trumpets of “The Time is Now” echo across the arena. Music is a huge part of pro-wrestling.
Strickland is no stranger to having his own memorable entrances. Music has always been a key part of his persona, dating back to the independent wrestling scene where he came out to Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody”.
Today, “The Mogul” Strickland walks out to the tune of “Big Pressure (Remix)” performed by Flash Garments and himself. The song adds to the coolness of his entrance where he slowly walks into the ring as fans dance along to his manager Prince Nana’s dance moves.
Though Strickland may look smug as he walks to the ring, the positive reaction from the crowd is exactly what he’s looking for. This is because Strickland ultimately has two goals in pro-wrestling: be the best wrestler he can be, and become the bridge between wrestling and Hip-Hop culture.
The gimmick of “Swerve” is an extension of the person behind the character, Stephon Strickland. Apart from being a 15-year veteran wrestler, Strickland has also ventured into the hip-hop world by making his own music. He has made connections with hip-hop artists such as Rick Ross, Westside Gunn, Kevin Gates, DJ Whoo Kid, and many other rappers, whom he has brought in for appearances on AEW programming.
Strickland is one of the main proponents of pushing the connection between the pro-wrestling and hip-hop industries. One of the ways he manages to do this is by introducing wrestling audiences to as many of his collaborators as he can in an effort to bring interest to both industries.
Strickland was recently a guest on The Breakfast Club, a popular hip-hop radio talk-show. In their interview, Charlamagne Tha God asked Strickland why he thinks it’s important to embrace both industries.
Strickland answered saying to grow an industry, you must slowly bring more eyes to it. He explained his goal, which is to attract at least one new fan each time he’s on TV.
“One percent a day is 365 a year … in a year you’re going to triple your investment but you gotta just move one bit. That’s my philosophy with everything I do.” Swerve stated.
He added, “Music; just get one new fan … one new stream, then wrestling; just get one new fan … one guy to buy one shirt … just move something forward every single day”
One of the main reasons behind Strickland’s determination to elevate hip-hop is due to the amount of influence its culture has had on his pro-wrestling career. In an interview on the Superstar Crossover podcast, Strickland talked about how much inspiration he took from hip-hop to curate his character.
Rather than simply being himself, Strickland explained that he was forced to add new layers to his character in order to stand out amongst a stacked World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) “NXT” roster at the time.
Strickland expressed, “I was experimenting with a lot of things, especially music. Travis Scott was a huge influence on me. Tyler, The Creator, A$AP Rocky. These visual artists that take a lot of … psychedelic type stuff and put it in their visuals.”
“I took a lot of influence on that and was like “okay that’s the sound … how would that look on a wrestler?” and that’s where the glasses and the hair, the look, the colors started really coming in.” he continued.
Swerve’s character today is essentially himself cranked up to eleven. The influences he took helped him evolve into the star he is now in AEW. It’s no surprise that Strickland was given the distinct honor of becoming AEW’s first Black world champion.