Swerve Strickland & Ricky Starks Were Involved In Backstage Scuffle

Last year at AEW Double or Nothing, the Jurassic Express defended their AEW World Tag Team Championships against Swerve In Our Glory and Team Taz in a hard-fought battle. However, the match became the talk of the town due to an apparent miscommunication between Swerve and Ricky Starks during the match. While the incident was quickly resolved, new developments regarding the backstage drama have come to light.

Fightful Select reported last year there were some issues between the two men due to a miscommunication. The issue was due to an unplanned spot in the match that saw Swerve attack Ricky after an attempted pin on Jungle Boy.

It is reported that Ricky Starks was supposed to go for his finish on someone, but Swerve Strickland found himself doing nothing and thought it would be better to get hit and dumped out of the ring, otherwise he would just be standing there doing nothing.

This incident resulted in the two men having a backstage scuffle following their match. A follow-up segment on AEW Dynamite was also nixed after the altercation. However, Starks and Swerve have settled their differences and are fine to this day.

“Not all of the backstage AEW fisticuffs have resulted in long-term issues.

A couple of top performers in All Elite Wrestling have admitted that they got into a skirmish in 2022. Swerve Strickland and Ricky Starks were involved in a Tag Team Championship match at AEW Double or Nothing, which led to a “scuffle,” per the two men. Fightful Select had reported last year that there had been some issues between the two after the match, due to a miscommunication. However, this was the first we’d heard of it elevating to SCUFFLE STATUS. 

We’re told that the issues stemmed from a miscommunication late in the match, where there was an unplanned spot that saw Swerve attack Ricky Starks after an attempted pin on Jungle Boy. Starks was originally supposed to go for his finish on someone, but Swerve found himself doing nothing and thought it would be a better improv to get hit and dumped out of the ring, otherwise he’d be standing there watching it. We had heard that they had a follow up segment on Dynamite after that nixed, but made peace after that, and are fine to this day. They even worked together a couple of months later on AEW Fyter Fest.

We’re told that the two spoke about the scuffle while on the Jericho Cruise for an upcoming episode of Swerve’s podcast, which you can check out at this link. https://linktr.ee/SwerveCity,” per Fightful Select.

2022 will always be remembered for the number of backstage issues that AEW had to deal with. It’s good that these two men were able to settle their differences quickly instead of letting them escalate. Stay tuned to Ringside News as we bring you similar stories.

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