AEW's Swerve Strickland On How Making Music Has Affected His Wrestling Presentation

While Swerve Strickland is mostly known for his in-ring exploits, from experiencing the "Hell of War" to being a member of Hit Row to defeating "Hangman" Adam Page at AEW WrestleDream, he's also known for his work in the music industry. Strickland himself has released at least one rap album, under the name Swerve the Realest, and has incorporated some of his hip-hop connections into AEW, most notably helping bring in Rick Ross for several appearances. Speaking with "DAZN," Strickland talked about the parallels between his work as a wrestler and as a rapper, and revealed how music had helped him go from being a good performer to a great one.

"Making music has helped my speech and my patterns and my cadences with my promos and so much more," Strickland said. "It's helped with some of those little quips that I come up with, those little bars ... some people say when I did the 'What's a farmer to a mogul? What's a cowboy to an outlaw? What's a buckshot to a Killshot?', those are kind of like battle lines, bars, battle rap bars. ... That's kind of helped, 'How do I end this with a good [line]?'"

"Music has helped me with my look, it's helped me with my persona, it's helped me with my walk to the ring," Strickland continued. "I try to make it feel like that artist that's finally here on stage, as soon as he gets that microphone, it's going to be 'Damn, dropping bars.' That's what the entrance feels like. You're anticipating that first song that he's about to drop, or when he walks on the stage. The music and my wrestling has become so parallel with one another."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "DAZN" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.