Keith Lee Reflects On His First Year In AEW, Talks Feud With Swerve Strickland

Keith Lee has been in AEW for a year now, and he recently looked back at the past 12 months in a new interview. Lee spoke with Fightful for a new interview, and you can check out a couple of highlights below:

On his first year in AEW: “I would classify it as a bit of an experiment. It’s been very interesting and intriguing and somewhat educational for me to experience something that is very different from where I came from, obviously.”

On his feud with Strickland: “Allow me to backtrack just a moment—your cousin is evil, brother. God. Listen, I like you. But I’m going to beat him up. Swerve and I are very similar in terms of willing to do the work to earn. Most places he’s been, and every place that I’ve ever been, I’ve never been that chosen guy and I think Swerve reciprocates that in a way where he’s had to work to earn acknowledgments and accomplishments for himself. I think he’s very protective of that, just as I am of my own accomplishments. But us winning tag team gold within five and six months—him, five months of being there; me, six months of being there—is a telltale sign of what we have to offer, what we’re capable of and hopefully what the future looks like for both of us whenever we move on from bashing the crap out of each other. ‘Cause I’m gonna bash the crap out of him.

“But I still love the guy and that’s the odd thing, right? People do things to wrong you and I have a literal diagonal scar on my chest from the cinder block that he stomped through my chest. He is the first person to ever scar me by his own actions. No human has ever done that. My scars have always come from my own accidents or football. Still, my own activities typically. Not another person. This left a mark, not just visually for me to see every day, but seeing what he’s actually capable of is something that made me get a little more real. Which is part of why I decided, ‘I’m going to be more of myself this time.’”