Swerve Strickland spent 2024 elevating his game to main event status, winning the AEW World Championship and reigning over the company as its centerpiece at a time when it needed it.

He has been rewarded handsomely by All Elite Wrestling for that, and rightfully so.

The latest on Strickland's new contract with the company headlines a collection of rumors that also looks at the status of WWE Premium Live Event cards and their length moving forward, as well as the latest on two former world champions currently missing from WWE television.

Dive deeper into each with this selection of pro wrestling insider reports.

Latest on WWE PLE Card Length

Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select reported that WWE has been happy with the way its shorter PLE cards have turned out over the last year and will continue limiting them to five matches.

"Whenever we've asked about the reasoning for doing so, we've been told that the format has worked for them and that it allows the company to help stack Raw and Smackdown, which they say has been especially useful when they run Smackdown in the same city as the next night's PLE," Sapp wrote.

The questions about the PLE length are understandable since they are presented as bigtime pay-per-view streaming shows, but it also makes sense that WWE would want to limit the number of contests on each card and bolster the television product around them.

More people see Raw and SmackDown on any given week so making sure those shows, which networks and advertisers pay big money to be part of or broadcast, are stacked should be a priority.

Also, it helps differentiate the Big Four PLEs from the rest of the yearly offerings. After all, what sets WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Royal Rumble and Survivor Series apart from the other events on the calendar is that there are more matches and more prestige involved.

If we got that every time out, it would water down what are supposed to be the company's foundational shows.

Keeping things tight and giving the five or so matches on the lineup an opportunity to build and fans the chance to breathe afterward has resulted in hotter crowds, more unforgettable atmospheres and a simply better show than it would be with a further three or four contests.

AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura Updates

AJ Styles has not been seen on WWE television since his loss to Cody Rhodes in the "I Quit" match for the Undisputed WWE Championship at Clash at the Castle in June.

And Shinsuke Nakamura has not wrestled a televised match for the company since the April 22 episode of Raw, where he lost to Sheamus.

Neither man has been injured, according to Sapp, which suggests their absences have been the direct result of creative either purposefully holding them off until the right time to return or having nothing for them.

Both returned to the ring during WWE's current trip to Europe, with Nakamura regularly facing LA Knight for the United States Championship in a Fatal 4-Way match while Styles challenged Rhodes for the top prize on the SmackDown brand.

Some will argue that keeping them off of television when they are legitimate stars whose efforts have helped revolutionize the industry is asinine, but it makes sense in reality.

Bringing them back when there is something for them to do rather than just reintroducing them with no plans in place, ultimately devalues them.

Letting them get big reactions on live events and international shows, which they bolster with their star power, is the right move at this point.

Swerve Strickland Contract Reports

Swerve Strickland may have dropped the AEW World Championship at All In in Wembley Stadium last Sunday, but he has signed a monumental new deal to make up for it.

Sapp reported that while the 33-year-old had previously signed a deal in 2022 that would take him through 2025, he had "outperformed it by the time his title reign rolled around, and negotiations began while he was champion. Swerve then signed his deal on the air with Tony Khan present. As noted, there was still time on his deal, but AEW prioritized getting the contract done to lock him down for years to come."

The insider added: "We're told the contract is a multi-year contract that will keep him with the company until at least 2028, though we aren't sure of the exact length of the deal. It was confirmed to Fightful that this is considered one of the biggest deals in the company's history."

Strickland has more than earned the upgrade in pay and stature. The breakout AEW star has delivered on countless big stages, including unforgettable matches with "Hangman" Adam Page as part of a year-long rivalry and against Danielson in London.

He has become one of the faces of the company, someone Tony Khan trusts in front of the media and in advertising and marketing campaigns and believes can be one of the central figures in his booking efforts.

That he has been rewarded for that hard work and trust is not surprising. In fact, promoters should make it a normality moving forward, especially if it is obvious that talent has outperformed their previous deal.

Strickland will next take to the PPV stage on September 7 at All Out in Chicago, where he will write the next chapter of his feud with Page in a steel cage match.