Keith Lee & Swerve Strickland Winning AEW Tag Titles Was The Plan All Along

Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland got a surprising victory on Wednesday night’s edition of Dynamite. They defeated The Young Bucks and the team of Powerhouse Hobbs and Ricky Starks to capture the AEW World Tag Team Championships. A lot of people were not expecting the result.

As it turns out, AEW always planned to put the titles on Lee and Swerve. After original plans for The Hardys to win the belts were nixed, Tony Khan made The Young Bucks his champions. The idea was always to have them eventually drop the championships to Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland.

In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer analyzed the reasons Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland were chosen. AEW loves their “Shaq and Kobe” dynamic. The teases of problems between the team also made for a compelling story.

“The plan was always to get the belts on Lee & Strickland with the teased break-up spots to make it a surprise. When Jeff Hardy had his issue and the Young Bucks got the tag titles, necessary since it was the Christian turn on Jungle Boy plan, they were set to immediately lose to Lee & Strickland.

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The feeling has been that Lee & Strickland have had tremendous matches and they are going with this Shaq/Kobe idea of the large, charismatic upbeat guy with the other superstar on the team that doesn’t always get along. The teases of the heel turn by Strickland was at least partially to make the title change a surprise.”

Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland are now the reigning AEW World Tag Team Champions. Tony Khan sees a lot of upside in the duo. It will be very interesting to see how their championship run plays out.

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