AEW Signs Ex-WWE Superstar

A former WWE Superstar is heading to All Elite Wrestling (AEW). According to Fightful Select, Shane “Swerve” Strickland, also known as Isaiah “Swerve” Scott, is singing with AEW after being released from WWE. Fightful Select was told that the deal was in the works since January and is in “effect starting the first week of March.” 

Strickland was one of the top stars in NXT and was a member of the group Hit Row. The group was released from their WWE contracts in November shortly after making their main roster debuts. In NXT, Strickland won the North American Championship and held on to the title for 105 days before losing to the current champ Carmelo Hayes in October. 

“I don’t feel overwhelmed anymore at this point,” Stickland said in an interview with Inside the Ropes in August when asked about winning the North American title. “I feel like all those overwhelming feelings there with those challenges, that’s the fun part for me. I’m like, ‘How do I conquer this to for the day?’ 

“That’s how I keep my motivation. I don’t look at it like, ‘Oh, I got to do this interview all I got to film this. I’ve got to be over here. Oh, I got to take these pictures. I got to rehearse this. I got to…’ like I don’t look at it like that. I look at all these things that should be grunt work. I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, how can I make this mine? How can I accomplish this? Oh, I’ve got to do that at three go back. I do this at 2:45. Oh I got to get this done now too. All right, cool. But if I knock this out real quick. Boom, boom, boom.”  

Before joining WWE in 2019, Strickland spent time in various promotions, including Luca Underground, Combat Zone Wrestling and Major League Wrestling. In the same interview, Strickland talked about how Hit Row was formed. “It was honestly as simple as, like, peanut butter and jelly – boom, there’s the sandwich,” he said. “It was literally as simple as that. Like they were doing a group in the Performance Center called The Hitmakers. It was Ashante, Top Dolla and B-FAB. They were their own separate group and they were supposed to take off and do something, in another project that didn’t end up happening in the Performance Center, and I’d just came off of the Falls Count Anywhere Match with Leon Ruff.”