Swerve Strickland has done enough painful things in wrestling that picking the worst one takes some thought. He’s even had a syringe driven through his mouth before taking a chair shot, but there’s one moment from his rivalry with Hangman Page that he has absolutely no interest in experiencing again.
While speaking to HOT 97, the hosts brought up some of the punishment Swerve has taken throughout his career. The syringe spot immediately came up as one of the more disturbing examples. Swerve didn’t disagree that it was brutal. He just knew something that was worse.
“There was a moment where he took a syringe in his mouth, shot it through the mouth and got hit over the head with a chair. And I live to tell the day about it. That wasn’t as bad as getting powerbombed on the cinder block.”
That happened during Swerve’s Steel Cage match against Hangman Page at AEW All Out 2024. Hangman powerbombed Swerve onto a cinder block, and when the hosts wondered whether the block was actually real, Swerve confirmed there wasn’t anything gimmicked about what he landed on.
“That was a full-on real cinder block. That was probably the worst thing I’ve ever done. I was like, ‘Never again.’”
Actually taking a spot like that requires Swerve to temporarily shut off the part of his brain telling him how terrible the idea is. He explained that once he agrees to something dangerous, there is a very small window before common sense starts creeping back in.
“It has to empty. I have to empty my mind because I can’t have any other thoughts because, like, I’m like, ‘Do it before I just say no. Do it now.’ Because, like, there’s a time and window before I, like, come to my realization, ‘This is stupid.’”
That pretty much explains how Swerve ended up taking one of the nastiest bumps of his career. He had to let Hangman do it before his brain had enough time to remind him that getting powerbombed onto a real cinder block was, in his own words, “stupid.” Swerve survived it, but there won’t be an encore if he has anything to say about it. “Never again” sounds fairly definitive.
What do you think was the most brutal moment from Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page’s rivalry? Let us know in the comments.
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