Swerve Strickland says AEW pays better than WWE “by far because it’s guaranteed”
During an interview with Baller Alert, Swerve Strickland was asked which wrestling company pays better between WWE and AEW. Here was Swerve’s response…
“AEW, by far because it’s guaranteed. They’ve [WWE] got their select few up top—the top, top, top guys—who are kind of untouchable. But a lot of those guys are starting to retire now.
So that group is starting to change. Like John Cena just retired, AJ Styles retired, and those were the top earners. The Undertaker can’t really go anymore. So that pyramid is starting to get really pointy and small at the top.
If I compare the two, Tony Khan owns AEW. He’s also part owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham F.C. in the UK. He treats the roster more like athletes. There are player-coaches in the organization, system coaches—he’s a player’s booker. He’s in tune with his talent and his roster and where to put those guys.
He utilizes people really well. It’s like a scheme on a football team. Me and him gel very, very well because he knows my strengths. He knows where I belong and how to use all his players the right way. Because of that, he knows how to pay them too and motivate them in certain ways.
And we’re only in year seven of the company, which is a very small window for a wrestling promotion as big as we are. We did 80,000 seats at Wembley Stadium and filled it. We did 30,000 at Globe Life Field this past summer.
We’re about to go back to Wembley again, and we’re about to run Crypto.com Arena in two weeks in LA, which is already around 10,000 seats filled. So we moved very fast and grew very quickly because of his mindset about expanding and putting together a great roster.
Negotiating with him was literally like negotiating as an athlete, and I’d never had that experience before. So I’m very much set for the next three or four years. After that, I get to decide what I want to do, and I’ll have the leverage I need to move however I want to in life.”