Immediately after having a syringe shoved through his cheek, with nowhere to go and no fight left in him, Swerve Strickland took a vicious unprotected chair shot to the end that resulted in a knockout victory for Hangman Page. That moment also caused a stir online due to the knowledge of concussions and CTE that have become more prominent over the last two decades, and Strickland didn’t hold back in admitting how much that shot to the head felt.

“It felt like I got punched in the head from two fists. It was like from two different sides of the skull,” Strickland said. “It was very John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, end of a movie ‘POW you’re dead.’ It’s just as simple as that. Like there’s nobody coming to help you, we’re off in the middle of nowhere, you’ve gone so far as doing bad things–from doing bad things to earn the success, it’s going to catch up to you.”

Strickland explained that the conclusion to the match felt like his character got what was coming to him as he has done terrible things to people in AEW in order to reach the top. Taking a syringe to the mouth and a chair shot to the head was simply karma for what he had done, regardless of whether the crowd were cheering him or not. The AEW fans still cheer Strickland to this day, and have been even louder in their responses to him since returning at AEW Full Gear 2025, where it seems that Strickland and Page have put their differences aside (for now at least) in order to take down current AEW Men’s World Champion Samoa Joe.

Please credit “Insight” when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.