Shane “Swerve” Strickland recently joined the Talk Is Jericho podcast to discuss the short-lived Lucha Underground promotion.
The AEW star worked under a mask during his LU days as Killshot, a troubled war-veteran whose haunted past confronts him inside the squared circle. The former NXT North American champion recalls coming up with the character, and how he it differed from the tone of the other lucha characters on the show.
“I came up with Killshot, a military character and all the stuff. I’m a Metal Gear Solid fan, so I put some espionage in there. I was writing my character to be able to interact with other characters, and they liked that, so they took all of it and formed something. People really gravitated towards that character because it was a person. A lot of the characters were Mayan, Aztecan [monsters] – it was very fantasy. It was cool, but I was like, ‘I have to do something to be different over here.’ The same with my wrestling style.”
Much like AEW Lucha Underground gave talent a good amount of creative control, something Swerve very much appreciated, even when it proved to become difficult for a taped product.
“That was another place where the creativity just flowed. They were so open to ideas. It was a little tricky because they can’t modify or change too much direction because it was written seasonally. So, if like, ‘We want this but this person is getting over, we already shot the scenes for this and that.’ You shot like a three-month block from March to June, and say this character is getting over in December, oh well. Gotta catch you in the next season. That was the only tricky part about that.”
Despite growing in popularity Lucha Underground eventually folded in 2018 after being on El Rey Network for four years. A big reason Swerve believes the run was short-lived was because the studio didn’t want to spend the money to grow it.
“It was growing in popularity, but I don’t feel like the studio wanted to grow along with it. They didn’t want to spend the money to grow it. We should have been touring with that roster. You can’t see those characters anywhere else. I feel like merchandising, they didn’t want to spend the money on that.”
While Lucha Underground is no longer active Major League Wrestling did revive the company’s spirit by introducing their Azteca Underground brand, which is run by Cesar Duran, also known as the former host of the LU temple, Dario Cueto. Many stars from the promotion continue to make waves in the wrestling industry throughout WWE, AEW, IMPACT, and NJPW.
Swerve’s Killshot was a big hit with LU fans, with his Weapons of Mass Destruction showdown against company rival AR Fox being a marquee bout that many still talk about until this day.
(Quotes via 411 Mania)
