Shane "Swerve" Strickland has a lot of respect for the late, great Windham "Bray Wyatt" Rotunda.
During a recent appearance on the Not Sam Wrestling podcast for an in-depth interview, The Mogul Embassy leader in AEW spoke about his thoughts on "The Eater of Worlds," paying homage to him with his ring gear at AEW Full Gear 2023, and the positive fan reaction to his Texas Death Match with Hangman Page.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On Bray Wyatt and how he paid homage to the WWE legend with his ring gear at AEW Full Gear 2023: "I didn’t know Bray as close as a lot of people like Brodie Lee, there were people influenced by him from his time there, but some people have known him since FCW or NXT and they have that personal connection. To me, I remember when The Fiend was really going, there was a lot of chatter that it wasn’t for them, as a fan. I was like, ‘No, this is brilliant work.’ I don’t think people really appreciated the brilliance he was bringing to the screen and a lot of risks he was taking, week by week, which is not easy to do. Weekly television on two shows. It wasn’t just Raw or SmackDown, he was doing both shows with his material. Bringing that to the real world. I really appreciated that and I think he was ahead of his time. I just wanted to show appreciation that the love and influence wasn’t lost. I put that as part of my gear, and I was in the locker room with him during my time at 205 [205 Live], he always gave me hugs. He was awesome. At one point, I had to help him with a Fiend mask. It was COVID and we were all in that box together. There were times I had to help him with that. There were times I would see him in Gorilla coming back when they were testing the red lighting after the show and getting that going. I’ve seen a lot of those processes with him. He was always a good brother in the locker room. He was fun, really cool. That was one of those things of, ‘you’ve always influenced me through all of this.’ No matter what, if it was their taste or wasn’t, I’m a horror person, and I was really happy to see a new age of horror brought to the screen in an industry that I love and I was like, ‘Man, that was a revolutionary.’ I wanted to take a little piece of that into what I was doing that night. If anything, I feel like his spirit powered that match."
On the positive reaction that the Texas Death Match he had with Hangman Page at AEW Full Gear 2023 has been receiving: "It’s very rare that it hits across the board and gets a ten from every outlet and every fanbase. It’s just impossible in this day and age. Just know, it hit the right people. It hit the notes with people that really cared. The ones that it did hit, it changed their lives. That’s what matters. It definitely did for me. It changed my viewing and the possibilities of what we could really do in this medium and this industry. I’m going to take a piece of that and revamp it in a way that fits me."
Check out the complete interview at NotSamWrestling.com. H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.
