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Swerve Strickland
American professional wrestler (born 1990) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stephon Strickland (born September 30, 1990) is an American professional wrestler and rapper. As a wrestler, he has been signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) since March 2022[update], where he performs under the ring name Swerve Strickland and is the current AEW World Champion in his first reign.
Swerve Strickland | |
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![]() Strickland in 2022 | |
Birth name | Stephon Strickland |
Born | (1990-09-30) September 30, 1990 (age 33) Tacoma, Washington, U.S. |
Children | 3 |
Professional wrestling career | |
Ring name(s) | |
Billed height | 6 ft 1 in (185 cm)[1][3] |
Billed weight | 233 lb (106 kg) |
Billed from | Tacoma, Washington[1] |
Trained by |
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Debut | 2011 |
Military service | |
Allegiance | ![]() |
Service/ | ![]() |
Years of service | 2008–2015 |
Strickland began his career in 2008, working as Shane Strickland for several independent promotions until 2019, including Major League Wrestling (MLW), Evolve Wrestling, and Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW), winning the respective main titles of these promotions, the MLW World Heavyweight Championship, Evolve Championship, and CZW World Heavyweight Championship. From 2014 until 2018, Strickland performed in Lucha Underground as a masked wrestler named Killshot. In 2019, he signed a developmental contract with WWE, where he worked as Isaiah "Swerve" Scott in NXT. While in NXT, he was part of the Hit Row stable and won the NXT North American Championship once, but soon after he was promoted to the main roster on SmackDown, he was released from his contract in November 2021.
After his WWE release, he changed his name to Swerve Strickland and signed with AEW in March 2022. He formed a tag team with Keith Lee, winning the AEW World Tag Team Championship once. After turning on Lee, Strickland became the leader of the Mogul Embassy stable and would go on to win the AEW World Championship once.