Swerve Strickland names his AEW Mount Rushmore
Narrowing it down to four choices is difficult — but Swerve Strickland would choose Jon Moxley, Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, and Sting as his AEW Mount Rushmore.
Strickland was asked to name his Mount Rushmore of AEW stars while being interviewed by radio station 107.7 The Bone in advance of Sunday’s Revolution pay-per-view. To Strickland, the most important element of being a Mount Rushmore-worthy name is the influence you had. He believes AEW wouldn’t be where it is today without Moxley, Jericho, Omega, and Sting.
“I feel like Mount Rushmore comes up when it’s the guys that really, we wouldn’t be here without these guys. That’s how I always put the Mount Rushmore,” Strickland said. “If I had to go with that, I would say Moxley, Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, and I would say, man, honestly, I’d put Sting up there too. Because that was like — we needed that. All those guys are veterans, but we needed that true legend. He was our legend…
“I felt like Sting also helped get them through the COVID era too. Like, I wasn’t over there at the time, but Sting really held it down and he made such a big difference that I don’t think people talk about enough. When I finally came over and got there, you felt the difference. I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, this matters. This means so much.'”
There are plenty of other options, though, with Strickland pointing to talent that were pivotal in shaping the men’s, women’s, and tag team divisions.
“It’s tough because you still have the Hangmans, you still have MJF over there. You still have the Bryan Danielsons,” he said. “You still have all these guys that matter so much — and girls. Britt Baker mattered so much at the time. Riho, [Hikaru] Shida, Thunder Rosa. Then that evolved into Athena coming in, Mercedes [Mone], Toni Storm, Jamie Hayter. The evolution just kept, like, boom, boom, boom. Willow [Nightingale] with the TBS title. You had Jade [Cargill] at the time. There’s so many different chapters you could turn on the page of AEW just in the women’s division alone.
“And then the men’s, I came in, then Bryan Danielson after me, [Will] Ospreay changed the whole act three. It’s scary how deep this is. [Young] Bucks, FTR. It can be endless. Even still, these guys don’t get enough credit too for the tag division, but I’ll say The Acclaimed. I’ll go say Acclaimed and Billy [Gunn]. They don’t get enough credit either for being day ones to finally hitting their stride after a couple of years”
This May will mark the seventh anniversary of AEW’s first-ever event. The promotion has Revolution coming up this weekend, then Dynasty in April and Double or Nothing in May. Strickland vs. Brody King is part of the lineup for Revolution.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.