How far is too far? How much blood must be spilled in order for a thirst to be quenched? How much hate do you have to have for another human being that burning their house down seems like a justifiable action? All of these questions were asked when Hangman Page came into contact with Swerve Strickland.

Two years after his triumph over Kenny Omega, Page had slipped back down the card in AEW and was no longer seen as the “main character,” but was still given opportunities to be the man everyone knew he could be. This prompted Strickland to confront Page by saying that if he was given the same chances Page had been given, he would be the first black AEW World Champion, urging Page to try and find that spark he had in 2021. When Strickland beat Page in their initial meeting, that didn’t satisfy Strickland enough and felt like he needed to get in Page’s head, or more specifically, his home.

Strickland broke into Page’s home while he was wrestling and showed the footage on “AEW Dynamite,” and from there, the gloves were off. The happy-go-lucky cowboy that everyone had loved had gone to the darkest part of his soul and had one objective; make Strickland’s life miserable. Nothing was off limits, especially in their Texas Death Match at Full Gear 2023 where Page stapled his son’s drawings to Strickland’s face and drank his blood, but his blind rage was his own undoing and Strickland choked Page unconscious by hanging him from the ring post.

Then an even bigger problem arose as Page realized that despite Strickland legitimately impacting his life for the worse outside the ring, the fan support for Strickland was growing, causing Page’s hatred of Strickland to grow with it. No longer was the AEW World Championship a goal for Page, he cared less about holding the title and more about Strickland not holding it, but when he had to step away from AEW for personal reasons, Strickland reached the promise land and became the first-ever African American AEW World Champion.

When Page returned, his mission of making sure Strickland didn’t hold the title was the same, and even after failing to earn a title shot by winning the 2024 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, he would attempt to get involved in the main event of AEW All In London 2024, which Strickland would eventually lose to Bryan Danielson. However, after a challenge for a Steel Cage match was made for All Out 2024, Page finally brought Strickland to his level of hatred by burning down Strickland’s childhood home that was gifted to him as part of his new contract. Their cage match turned into a grizzly horror show that ended with Page knocking Strickland unconscious by drugging him and giving him a vicious unprotected chair shot to the head. Page got revenge on Strickland for ruining his life, but he lost every part of himself to do it.