Swerve Strickland Talks On His Background And Parallels With Keith Lee

On a recent episode of The Sessions With Renee Paquette, Swerve Strickland reminisced about his partnership and history with Keith Lee, going back to their time with independent companies before joining NXT (per Wrestling Inc). Strickland discussed how their careers converged and the circumstances that affected their individual trajectories. You can find a couple highlights and listen to the full episode below.

On some of the events that affected Lee’s career: “Me and Keith, we literally tagged on the indies before he got signed to WWE, and that was like 2017. He is someone who also has just as big of a chip on his shoulder as me because he was promised the world, and unfortunately for him, he got sick too, and it wasn’t an easy ‘just have some Robitussin and get up and go,’ no, he was like facing death. He was out of commission for a while, you know? So, I feel like he has a chip on his shoulder for his career and for personal reasons with his life, as well.”

On what having Lee as a partner means for him: “I look at him as literally one of the best influences in our industry from a culture side, in so many different ways.”