I’ve been informed by reliable sources that the finish to Swerve Strickland vs. “Hangman” Adam Page last week was supposed to be a double turn, and judging by the crowd reaction, that is evidently true. I just can’t get behind it, probably because I prefer face/heel turns to come in the form of some kind of, like, good or evil act, as opposed to “because one of them started getting bigger pops.”

If last week was a double turn, that means that Page is a heel because he refused to go five more minutes with Swerve. That is the weakest heel turn I’ve ever heard of in my life. It’s not even explicitly villainous — Page has been very clear about the fact that his goal here is to prevent Swerve, a legit villain who once broke into Page’s house and cut a promo on his sleeping baby, from winning the world title. So no, he wasn’t going to give Swerve five more minutes; that would be stupid. It’s only seen as a heel move because the guy he’s denying is now a babyface, because … why, exactly? Has Swerve Strickland done one single thing, in character, to merit such a turn? Sure, he cut that “Collision” promo about Black history and shouted out Kofi Kingston and Athena, but that was also the promo where he admitted he’s done horrible things and regrets none of them, because he had to do those things to get to the title. That’s not a babyface, I’m sorry. AEW’s single scariest heel doesn’t get to suddenly be a good guy because he wanted five more minutes added to a time limit draw.

But here we are. This week, Swerve is out there cutting the same promo every AEW babyface cuts about how people told him he would never make it, etc, etc, and after Page is finished inexplicably recycling dril tweets, he’s already in full-on delusional heel mode. And this is why AEW’s programming almost never connects with me — the characters and the narratives are too inconsistent to resonate. They don’t grow or change in ways that feel natural, they just become whatever Tony Khan needs them to be. I don’t believe any of it, at least not from these two. Personally, at Revolution, I will be rooting for the champion to retain, because Samoa Joe was so much better this week than everyone around him. As usual.

Written by Miles Schneiderman