Swerve Strickland is proud of what he and Adam Page accomplished at AEW Full Gear.
The Texas Death Match that took place at the recent pay-per-view will live on in fans’ minds for quite some time. AEW has been bloody and violent in the past, but rarely on this level. The match lasted 30 minutes and was so brutal it was even picked up by major media outlets, who focused in particular on the spot where Page drank Strickland’s blood.
Strickland was interviewed by TMZ to get his thoughts on the match as a whole and the negative reactions to the blood drinking. The former Tag Team Champion stated that it is difficult to really grip the fans in 2023 and if there is an opportunity to take the brutality and uncomfortableness to the next level, he will take it:
“I mean, that’s pretty much why we’re here, having this conversation in the first place. If you’re gonna go all out in a match like that, you have to release all the chains, all the handcuffs, understand that there’s going to be criticism because we’re gonna shake the foundation a little bit. Shoutout to a lot of the forums that are picking up, talking about it, discussing it. We appreciate you, I love you, thank you, for watching, and adding so much noise to the discussion about the match.
But in 2023, it’s become really difficult to really catch the attention across all these platforms. People are coming up with five-star matches every pay-per-view. Every pay-per-view, I think there’s a five-star match, guaranteed. This match is put in there to have that. I’m not even a big fan of five stars. I’m just more about the story, and if there’s something memorable about it. If it happens to be five stars, some people perceive it as that, cool. I’m all about the business and television and theatre.
I feel like that was one of those moments it was like, that was theater. That was cinematic, like, ‘Oh my god. You have to go out of your way to see this because I can’t even believe it,'”
As has been seen online, many wrestling and non-wrestling fans have been critical of what took place at Full Gear, with Jim Cornette being especially outraged at AEW over what he saw.
Swerve Strickland was asked about his thoughts to the backlash that the match and spot received. Strickland described how he and Page were able to push boundaries with this match to the point where people had to watch it to form their own opinions. Strickland also referenced the differences between AEW and WWE, stating that WWE does what they do so well and AEW does what they do well too:
“Whoever has anything to complain about it, feel free. Complain, I implore you. It’s not a good thing to do. I don’t implore anybody to do anything like that. But the fact that it was done, it makes people [go], ‘I don’t believe you. I gotta go see this for myself.’ That’s what that was. We pushed boundaries. That’s what AEW was built on. Pushing boundaries, doing things that other places just couldn’t do, or are not able to do. You’re not able to see that anywhere else.
There’s been another product that’s been doing it for so long. They’re excellent at what they do. We gotta find what we’re excellent at what we do. That was the pinnacle of what AEW was like. That’s what we do. We are excellent at what we do,”
Swerve Strickland & Adam Page Receive High Praise From Dave Meltzer
An unlikely name who was a big fan of the match was Dave Meltzer, who awarded the match five stars in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that followed the pay-per-view. For Strickland, this was his first match to receive the accolade.
H/t to Fightful.