SWERVE STRICKLAND

AEW World Champion and one-time AEW World Tag Team Champion with Keith Lee, Swerve Strickland rose through independent wrestling before WWE mishandled him—the first Black AEW World Champion, he parlayed technical precision and high-flying athleticism into one of the company's defining feuds with Hangman Adam Page. An AEW World Tag Team Championship run with Keith Lee under the team name "Swerve in our Glory" lasted 70 days. He captured the AEW World Heavyweight Championship on April 21, becoming the eighth wrestler in AEW history to hold the championship, and the first African American to accomplish the feat. His reign as champion lasted 126 days, until he was defeated by Bryan Danielson on Aug. 25, 2024, at AEW: All In London at Wembley Stadium.

Swerve Strickland returned in a vignette on Dynamite showing a man walking through a Western town before finding a Bandido wanted poster on the ground. The camera panned up to reveal Strickland alongside Prince Nana, who handed him a lighter shaped like a gun. In May, Strickland entered his first Owen Hart Cup tournament, defeating Bandido in the quarterfinal at Double or Nothing on May 24.