Swerve Strickland on Why the Industry Needed the AEW Continental Classic

– During a recent interview with The Miami Herald’s Jim Varsallone, AEW star Swerve Strickland discussed the Continental Classic tournament and what makes it fun for wrestling fans. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Swerve Strickland on the Continental Classic: “The Classic has been a shot in the arm of what the pro wrestling industry needed. Introducing a new style of tournament bracketing with the classic round-robin style of blocks and scoring points. The usual tournament, you see [the seeding] and sometimes those guys don’t cross paths and they don’t face each other. In round robin, everyone has to face everyone, and that’s what made it so special. Everyone in the block was like, ‘I get to see these matchups. That’s going to be cool. I don’t know who is going to win here, this could be a draw.'”

On what’s fun about the touranment:: “A lot of fans had a lot of fun with the scoring. Whoever is truly a wrestling connoisseur can have a lot of fun with those things. Me being part of the first one, we had to set the tone for the first-ever Continental Classic. Me being a finalist and going against Jay White and Jon Moxley, who is going to go down as a Hall of Famer and all-time great, being able to not face him once, but face him twice, means a lot. I get redemption for myself. Jay White, one of the pioneers of New Japan for the last three or four years, coming over here, he is new and being integrated to the national audience on-screen. I have a victory over him, and that means something, and it means something to him. He wants his redemption on me. Everyone is after something and we want to take it out on each other.”

Swerve Strickland faces Jon Moxley and Jay White in the Gold League finals of the tournament tomorrow on AEW Dynamite. The winner then goes on to face the winner of the Blue League finals between Eddie Kingston and Bryan Danielson in the tournament finals at AEW Worlds End on Saturday, December 30 on pay-per-view.