Roderick Strong Reflects On What It Means To Be AEW International Champion

Roderick Strong is the AEW International Champion, and he says it’s a title he wanted even before he was in the company. Strong won the title from Orange Cassidy at AEW Dynasty, and he spoke about holding the championship on the latest episode of AEW Unrestricted. You can see some highlights below, per Fightful:

On what winning the title meant to him: “I want to say it’s an honor, but obviously, that seems strange to say, but it honestly is. This is the title that, immediately when it came about, that was something I’ve had my eye on, even when I wasn’t with the company. So to have the opportunity to face someone like Orange Cassidy, as talented as he is, kind of surreal at the moment. People were talking to me about that, just how amazing that pay-per-view was overall and just the fact that it was a spotlight opportunity, and I took advantage of it, so it was awesome.”

On being a champion in AEW: “It’s meant the world to me, and something that was important to me after I won it, or before I won it, when I knew I was gonna win it, was the fact that I was gonna make people earn their opportunities to face me. I appreciate what Orange did for a lot of people, but like everything in my career, I had to take the long path. So I’m gonna make people take the long path. You see how often people quit, and they’re not willing to really sacrifice. They say they will, but when they’re in that situation, they won’t. So to me, this means. next to my wife and my son, it means everything.”