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Teddy Long recently opened up about Swerve Strickland being recognized as the first African American AEW World Champion. The WWE legend thinks Strickland must be recognized simply as a champion without stressing his identity.
One of the most crowd-pleasing moments at last month's Dynasty pay-per-view saw Strickland triumph over Samoa Joe in the main event. In the process, he won the World Title and established himself as the face of All Elite Wrestling.
A lot of chatter surrounding Swerve Strickland's crowning moment has revolved around how he became the first African American World Champion in AEW.
On the latest episode of Sportskeeda's The Wrestling Time Machine podcast, Teddy Long took an issue with this. Long feels the conversation should be centered around Strickland's accomplishments rather than his ethnicity.
"That's what I wanted to say. The first African American [World] Champion in AEW. Jesus Christ, come on! Let's just say the guy is a champion. AEW champion. They know he's Afro-American and they can look at him. He's black," said Teddy Long. (4:31 - 4:47)
Check out the video below.
AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland has immense respect for Samoa Joe
In his recent backstage interview with Renee Paquette, Swerve Strickland went out of his way to shower praise on his Dynasty opponent, Samoa Joe.
Strickland mentioned that Joe was one of the best champions in All Elite Wrestling history. The 33-year-old added that he had tons of respect for The Samoan Submission Machine after the latter carried the company on his shoulders over the past few months.
"A legend, a force of a champion, out of all the champions in All Elite Wrestling, which there aren't many. We can count them on two hands. He was probably the biggest task out of any of them. They are all great performers, they are all legends, they are all legends in the making, but Samoa Joe just felt different. He felt like a titan. (...) What do you do to take this guy down? Shout out to him for holding it down for the last couple of months, he has been, like a dominant champion," Strickland said.
Swerve Strickland also defended his World Title on last week's episode of Collision, where he defeated Claudio Castagnoli.
If you take any quotes from the article's first half, please credit Sportskeeda Wrestling and embed the YouTube video.
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