Swerve Strickland Opens Up On New Level Alliance & Addresses Replacing Big E

Swerve Strickland Addresses New Level Alliance: "I Can Never Replace Big E"

Former AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland has opened up about forming New Level alongside Austin Creed and Kofi, reflecting on how their shock alliance came together and directly addressing comparisons to Big E.

The trio shocked the wrestling world at AEW All In 2026 in London, entering as the wild card team in the Trios Roulette Royale to capture the AEW World Trios Championships.

Finding A New Momentum Shift Outside The Locker Room

Speaking on Black Couch Booking, Strickland recalled learning about Creed and Kofi’s contract status with WWE, admitting he initially found the news difficult to believe.

At the same time, Strickland was looking for a fresh direction following his Owen Hart Foundation Tournament final against Will Ospreay, and AEW President Tony Khan proposed placing him in the trios division.

“When I first heard about the news of their contract situation, it was a shock to me. I was like, ‘Really?’ It didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel believable at the time. It just was like, ‘Man, okay.’ I knew it was something that’s a possibility, it was just floating in the clouds at the time. I knew coming back after the main event with me and Ospreay for the Owen, it was like, ‘Okay, I need a momentum shift right here.’ It was a fact that Tony Khan, he knew he was going to place me in trios. That’s where he wanted me,” Strickland explained.

Strickland noted that because of his onscreen history with locker room rivals—including comments from Ricochet about how disliked he was backstage—he needed to look outside AEW to find partners.

“Like with Ricochet talking about there aren’t too many guys in the locker room that like me, they feel just as much hatred towards me as the rest of the guys and the people that I have these feuds with over the last couple of years. So, it can’t be anybody from the locker room. I have to go through outsourcing to get some new teammates. But it has to be something that you look at it like something you didn’t know you wanted, but now that you see it, it’s like man, how did we not see this?”

“Shoutout Big E, I Can Never Replace A Big E”

Addressing expected comparisons between his role in New Level and Creed and Kofi’s legendary WWE faction, The New Day, Strickland made it clear that the goal was never to replicate their past success, but to move forward with a fresh identity.

“That’s it. [We wanted to] shake the doubt of the people that already [were] going to have negativity towards it like, ‘Man, it’s not Big E.’ Shoutout Big E, I can never replace a Big E. But, we can do something new that moves forward instead of looking backwards,” Strickland stated. “That’s why New Level, song with Ferg and Future on the track, all these things just hit at the right time at the right place with the right people to put a shockwave into the energy of the wrestling world all at one encapsulating time. I was like, that’s the only way I could do something like that. These are the guys to do it with.”

New Level will make their first official defense of the AEW World Trios Championships on tonight’s episode of AEW Dynamite, taking on The Rascalz (Dezmond Xavier, Zachary Wentz & Myron Reed).

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