Swerve Strickland explains Floyd Mayweather AEW Double or Nothing appearance
After retaining the AEW World Championship at Double or Nothing, Swerve Strickland celebrated with a special guest.
Strickland defeated Christian Cage in the semi-main event of Sunday’s pay-per-view in Las Vegas. When the match ended, Strickland brought his title belt over to the crowd and shared a moment with boxing legend Floyd Mayweather. Brian “Q” Quinn from the show “Impractical Jokers” was also sitting in the front row.
At the post-show media scrum, Strickland explained that, for the past couple of years, he’s been trying to get Mayweather to come when AEW is in Las Vegas. Mayweather finally agreed to attend this time.
“Floyd has been a friend of ours. My man [rapper] Flash Garments over here, he gets a free pass every time he comes to All Elite Wrestling. Because, once again, we’re here to grow this company. We’re here to bring something to All Elite Wrestling, not just take. We want to give — like, if we got opportunities, if we have connections, we’re going to bring them here every single time. And we want to blow this place up and we want to be the catalyst of it,” Strickland said.
“So that’s how Floyd came through. We’ve actually been talking to Floyd for like two years now. His whole family, trying to have him come through every time we’re in Vegas. Finally, he was like, ‘All right, this is the day. We’re pulling up.’ So he pulled up, made it to the match. We pulled out a banger in front of him. He’s like, ‘I’m in, I’m in.’ We might have Money Team invested in this whole thing.”
Strickland said that, as World Champion, he’s focused both on his personal growth and growing AEW as a promotion. He wants to be an inspiration to everyone watching.
Mayweather has competed in pro wrestling once before, defeating Big Show in a no holds barred match at WWE WrestleMania 24 in 2008.