Swerve Strickland on violent matches: ‘It has to be justified’
Swerve Strickland says that violent matches need to be justified.
During an interview with Simon Miller that was published on Sunday, Strickland discussed his rivalry with Hangman Page and how the story warranted the violent matches they had.
Strickland said:
“I would say the means and the hatred between two characters, for the violence to go that far, has to be justified. I felt like me and Hangman was very justified seeing as we pushed boundaries with each other as men, not just characters, but as men.”
“I went into his home, he burnt down my house. That kind of warrants being dropped on a cinder block. That warrants the syringe and all the violence. That’s the connection we’ve had and once again all the equity we put in that year to get that far, to push things that far.“
“I feel like it just has to justify the means, the motive, why I’m doing this. Callbacks to certain things. Like the staple gun, stapling the picture of a kid’s painting that I ripped off his refrigerator when I went to his home. It was a callback to those things. Then I stapled my family picture that was in the photos that I had for the house back on his face.”
“So it was callbacks for reasonings and stuff like that. It’s all about having a justification for the violence between two characters and not just doing it for the sake of doing it to try to top it.”
Strickland’s recent rivalry with Brody King leading up to their match at AEW Revolution last weekend tied into both wrestlers’ history of violent matches in the company. The program centered around each claiming to be the most dangerous man in AEW. Their match at AEW Revolution was not a gimmick or no-disqualification bout. Instead, both wrestlers used objects around the ringside area in innovative ways.
Strickland’s full interview with Simon Miller is available below. The video is queued to his comments on violent matches.
Ian Carey is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose work has been featured in NOW Magazine, The Huffington Post, and more. A lifelong wrestling aficionado born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he has covered the industry for a decade and a half. He joined the f4wonline.com team in 2019.