Swerve Strickland sees Prince Nana as his moral compass, as well as many other things.
Since joining forces in last year, Nana and Swerve have gone from strength to strength. The manager has helped Swerve become a top star in AEW, including becoming AEW Champion at AEW Dynasty.
Swerve Strickland spoke with Bootleg Kev. The AEW Champion was asked about teaming up with Prince Nana, and revealed the process behind figuring out the partnership between the pair.
He noted Nana is his first-ever manager. The pair had to figure out what the manager brought to Swerve that he couldn’t already do himself, including being his “moral compass”.
“Nana’s my first ever manager that I’ve ever had in my career,” Swerve Strickland said. “For me, I feel like it’s like, what is me and Nana’s relationship to one another? Is he a businessman? Does he get contracts done? Is he a sleazy little, like, just a little guy that, like, you know, like a little Muppet that runs? Like, what is he? What is it with relation to Swerve, and what does Swerve need? That was where the questions that I asked myself: why does Swerve need Nana?”
“Well, like now, with just asking those questions, now there’s a multitude of things he does. He kind of does my bidding for him. He’s also my moral compass. If you notice certain things, he’s like, ‘No, no, not right now, boss. Let’s go. Let’s get out of this,’ ’cause, like, I’ll pop off and start a fight and do some wild shit right then and there, but Nana’s like, ‘Mm, nope, we got bigger things to handle.’ Or like, ‘Hey, there’s some news I need to talk to you about, that happened on Collision, by the way, that you might not know.’ Okay, so now he’s my ear to the streets too. Then he’s like, ‘Oh, you’re in trouble? Here’s my head, my crown, use it.'”
Tony Khan Put Swerve Strickland and Prince Nana Together
Bootleg Kev asked Swerve Strickland whose idea it was to put him and Nana together, to which the AEW Champion gave all the credit to AEW President Tony Khan.
He went on to describe how the merging of Mogul Affiliates and The Embassy had A-grade aspirations, but C-Level expectations. They clearly exceeded expectations, making Swerve and Nana top stars in AEW.
“I want to do a merger with Mogul Embassy—with Mogul Affiliates and the Embassy—and bring you two together because I think we want to get them on All Elite Wrestling TV. They were doing a lot of Ring of Honor, right? I think you could use heaters to be around you, and I think Nana and you complement each other very well. I was like, ‘Okay, that’s what the boss wants; that’s what we’re going to do.'”
“Now it’s like, how do I blow this up to more than just like, ‘Hey, hi guys. … I guess we’re working together. The teacher is putting us together to do this assignment.’ So we want to get an A, of course, and I think our achievement is always to get an A, but we had C-level expectations. I think we passed and exceeded. I think we exceeded that because, when we first started, I heard comments like, ‘Swerve doesn’t need that,’ and, ‘What do these guys do?’ But then it started growing. We started doing more devious stuff on television. I think that’s where it really began.”
