Adam Page Vs Swerve Strickland Is An AEW Masterpiece Feud

Hate. It's a strong word that should really be used sparingly when describing another human being. If someone cuts you off in traffic, or takes the last piece of cake at a buffet, or beats you at your favorite video game, you might say "I hate that guy," or "you see that girl there? I hate her." You don't really hate them, causing minor inconveniences in your day-to-day life isn't enough to hate someone because, quite frankly, you're probably never going to cross paths with them ever again.

Hate is reserved for a special type of person. Someone you know, someone who has done something so horrific to you or someone that you hold near and dear to your heart that even when they aren't around, you think about them, and you think of the pain that you might inflict upon them for wronging you, and it brings you some sense of short term joy. That is hate, and that is what drove Hangman Adam Page and Swerve Strickland to the edge of their own mortality.

At the time of writing, Swerve and Hangman seem to have finally diverted into different directions, with Swerve now looking to dethrone Kazuchika Okada as the AEW Unified Champion at Forbidden Door, while Hangman is sitting pretty atop of All Elite Wrestling as the AEW World Champion, much to the disdain of Jon Moxley and the Death Riders. It's a change in their own lives that one could say that they've both began a new chapter in their careers, because for the past two years, you couldn't mention the name Hangman Page without bringing up Swerve Strickland and vice versa.

Their rivalry is easily one of the greatest that AEW has ever produced, and if you asked any wrestling fan what are some of the greatest feuds of the 21st century in any company, chances are that Swerve and Hangman's story together would be brought up on more than one occasion. It's because of this, and the fact that their tale seems to be over (for now at least), that we are going to take a deeper look into what made their rivalry so special and memorable.

So sit back, relax, and try not to think about breaking into the house of the person you hate the most as we explore what made the feud between Hangman Adam Page and Swerve Strickland a masterpiece.

The funniest thing about the feud between Hangman Page and Swerve Strickland is that it actually started out on fairly innocent ground. Coming out of the summer of 2023 where Page was away from the main event scene for the first time in a long time, Strickland, who had been gathering momentum in that same timeframe, confronted Page about his attitude towards things. 

Strickland was angry that Page had been given so many golden opportunities in AEW thanks to who he friends with, and the fact that he was part of the company at the very beginning, and had not only let all that slip away, but seemed to be perfectly fine about it. Strickland told Page that if he had those same opportunities, he would have been the first-ever black AEW World Champion, something Page didn't disagree with, but Strickland didn't relent, telling Page to either get his act together and prove to everyone what "Cowboy S**t" really means, or he was going to be taking Page's spot by force.

Words of encouragement did seem to light a fire withing Hangman, but Swerve wasn't finished antagonizing him, as in October 2023, footage of Swerve breaking into Hangman's house aired on "AEW Dynamite," something that turned that fire inside into a towering inferno of blind rage that Hangman would seemingly be possessed by for the foreseeable future. Any opportunity to mess with Swerve, Hangman would take it. Anything that Swerve wanted, Hangman would want it more, not for his own gain, but because he didn't want Swerve to have it, which actually worked when it came to the AEW World Championship as Swerve would only go on to win it after Hangman had disappeared from the screen in the spring of 2024.

When Hangman returned, he was outraged at the fact that the man who not only broke into his house, forcing his entire family to move in the process, was the AEW World Champion, but because he was being cheered everywhere he went. He was one of the biggest stars in all of wrestling, beloved by the fans who had either forgiven him for his previous action, forgotten about them, or simply didn't care. This caused him to enter the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament in an attempt to earn a shot at Swerve and the AEW World Championship at All In London 2024, but fell in the final to Bryan Danielson. Then at the event itself, following another failed attempt to earn a title shot in the Casino Gauntlet, he interfered in the main event just enough to cost Swerve the title and have Bryan leave Wembley Stadium with the gold.

This then led to their Lights Out Unsanctioned Steel Cage match at All Out 2024 two weeks later, a match that truly symbolized Hangman's descent into madness as he might have gotten one over on the man who cost him everything, but he didn't know everything that made Hangman who he was had gone as well.

Considering that All Elite Wrestling prides itself on being the home of professional wrestling, a point that is made virtually every week when at least one person on either "AEW Dynamite" or "AEW Collision" says that AEW is "where the best wrestle." Because of that, every feud that the company puts together needs to be able to deliver in the ring, and if a pairing has more than one match together, those matches need to continue getting better with each passing match.

Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page have had a total of four singles matches together, each one more different than the last. Their first match took place at AEW WrestleDream on October 1, 2023, where it was extremely clear that Swerve had more on the line than Hangman. Swerve needed to back up all of the stuff he had been saying on TV by picking up the win, whereas Hangman, who was certainly more motivated than the months leading up to WrestleDream, just needed to maintain his cool and grind out the win with all the big match experience he had. However, Swerve picked up the win, sending Hangman further down the pecking order while Swerve continued to be seen as a future main event guy.

After the whole breaking into Hangman's house deal happened, the two would once again meet at Full Gear that November, this time in Texas Death Match. This was the polar opposite to WrestleDream, as while that match was about seeing who was the better man and who deserved a top spot in AEW, their match at Full Gear was about punishment. It was a fight to see which man could hurt the other one more, and how far they were both willing to go in order to have their hand raised. This time, it was Hangman's rage that got the best of him as Swerve, with the help of the Mogul Embassy, got yet another win over Page, becoming his bogey opponent in the process.

Their third meeting on the February 7, 2024 episode of "AEW Dynamite" is often the most forgotten match of the four despite it going to a 30 minute time limit draw, primarily because it happened on TV rather than pay-per-view. With that said, having another straight wrestling match, this time with the chance to wrestle Samoa Joe for the AEW World Championship, meant that the hatred Hangman had inside him needed to be contained somewhat if he was to finally get the win over Swerve. With the match ending in a draw, Hangman took a victory lap at the fact Swerve didn't beat him, even declining the chance to wrestle for five more minutes. This was the first clear sign that the face/heel dynamic between the two was shifting, as Swerve was focused solely on winning the AEW World Championship, but Page was focused on not letting Swerve win.

Seven months later at All Out, the heat got turned up again, which brings us on to...

The fourth, and to this date the most recent, singles match between Swerve and Hangman was a Lights Out Unsanctioned Steel Cage match at All Out 2024. It was originally meant to be a traditional Steel Cage match, but AEW said they wanted no part of it despite the fans begging for it to not only happen, but for it to be the main event. Therefore the only way it was going to go ahead was if AEW washed their hands of it and basically said "do what you want to each other, because as far as the history books go, this match never happened."

This match took the hatred to a whole different level. Hangman tried to have Swerve crushed under the cage before the match had even started, and what followed was a bloodbath that saw real cinderblocks, a burned piece of Swerve's childhood home (we'll get to that in a minute), and hypodermic needles being used all in an attempt to get the win in a match that technically didn't even mean anything outside of pride. Hangman got the win after knocking Swerve out with an unprotected steel chair shot to the head, forcing the referee to call the match off since Swerve couldn't continue. Hangman finally got his win, but at what cost?

To say that some people were outraged at this, and the Texas Death match ten months earlier, would be the understatement of the century. To put it simply, people were horrified at what Swerve and Hangman did to each other. While AEW got a lot of coverage for Hangman literally drinking Swerve's blood in the Texas Death match thanks to TMZ sharing the clip online, people called it grotesque, unnecessary garbage, an outlaw circus freakshow, the whole nine yards. As for the Steel Cage match, obviously an unprotected chair shot to the head is going to cause some conversations, but getting needles involved less than an hour after Bryan Danielson was suffocated with a plastic bag by Jon Moxley was a step too far for many people. The brigade of people who were angry at the fact that their children had to see a man stab another man in the mouth with a syringe were out in full force, which if you're letting your children watch a match like that knowing how violent it would be then that's not really AEW's problem, but there is one thing people missed about all this barbarism.

Few feuds ever warrant this sort of violence, it's the reason why some people don't like hardcore matches because a lot of them are done just for the sake of having one on the show, but these two hated each other. Swerve and Hangman wanted each other to die on camera, and so letting them do all of these insane things was not only warranted, but it actually made sense within the confines of a professional wrestling narrative, making every move, and object, feel all that more meaningful.

Before we mentioned that in their Steel Cage match, a piece of Swerve Strickland's childhood home was used as a weapon, and you might be thinking "How on earth is that possible?" Well that's because Hangman Page literally burned it down and kept a piece of it for himself so he could use "Swerve's House" against him. That's how insane Hangman was at this point.

While the matches were brilliant, and the violence level was unlike anything AEW had produced up to that point in time, what were the moments that caused both men to turn this professional grudge into the darkest of blood feuds? The aforementioned straw that broke Hangman's back was Swerve breaking into his home in October 2023, an action that made some people see Hangman drink Swerve's blood at Full Gear and go "Yeah, that's fair enough to be honest." But it wasn't just their matches that added layers to their story. In the lead-up to Revolution 2024, Hangman faked an injury so that he could lure Swerve into a false sense of security and attack him in the hopes of making the three-way match between himself, Swerve, and Samoa Joe for the AEW World Championship a singles match, but that didn't work.

When that match came around, Hangman was submitted by Joe, but eagle-eyed viewers noticed that Page wasn't in Joe's clutches for very long, leading to many people believing that Page threw the match just so Swerve couldn't win. Hangman would take some time off in the spring before returning (with a brand new entrance theme) in July for the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament as the wildcard, a spot he got thanks to The Young Bucks being EVP's, and even after he lost in the final, Matthew and Nicholas convinced Hangman to be part of their team for Blood and Guts on July 24 solely on the fact that Swerve would be on the opposite team.

Throughout their feud, both men became two of the best promos in AEW as well, especially Hangman. Hearing him tell Prince Nana that he was going to steal his weed is one thing, but hearing him talk about how he will be the judge, jury, and executioner who will sentence Swerve to a lifetime at the bottom of hell is something else. The sight of Hangman screaming "HE BROKE INTO MY HOME!" while covered in blood backstage, trying to justify why he's so mad was a promo that had many people thinking he should win the world title at All In London, and then of course, Swerve's house. The sight of Hangman sitting in front of Swerve's childhood home as it goes up in flames is one of the greatest moments in AEW history, and was finally the moment that Hangman brought Swerve down to the level that he had been dwelling in for some time, and the moment people feared what the two men would do to each other when they met at All Out.

It's really incredible to think that the show before Hangman Page and Swerve Strickland crossed paths for the first time, All Out 2023, Page was winning a charity battle royal on the pre-show, and Swerve wasn't even booked. Fast forward to today and you can't really imagine the main event scene of AEW without either of them.

After All Out 2024, Swerve disappeared to heal from his injuries, and would return to feud with the likes of The Hurt Syndicate, Ricochet, and eventually the Death Riders in his quest to get back his AEW World Championship. For Page, he had snapped and was at his lowest point from a moral standpoint maybe ever, eating back-to-back losses to Jay White before also going after the Death Riders and the richest prize in AEW. However, it was a Texas Death match against Christopher Daniels in January 2025, which would end up being "The Fallen Angel's" final match, and a rivalry with MJF that would help Page get close to where he was before he met Swerve.

With both men going after the Death Riders separately, they were ultimately on the same team without realizing it, and that was brought to the forefront at Dynasty 2025 when Page had the chance to help Swerve dethrone Jon Moxley, but hesitated too long, costing Swerve the match. Page would rectify the loss to Bryan Danielson in 2024 by winning the 2025 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, with the man he defeated in the final, Will Ospreay, being a good friend of Swerve's who actually convinced Swerve that Hangman was the right man to take on Moxley for the AEW World Championship at All In Texas.

In the weeks leading up to that show, Swerve and Hangman slowly realized that they both had regret over what they had done to each other, dragging each other down at a time when their were bigger fish to fry. Both men even agreed to let the past go ahead of Hangman's Texas Death match with Moxley, with Page leaving Swerve the chain he had been carrying around. Swerve would ultimately give Hangman the chain at All In Texas, who used it to beat Moxley and become the AEW World Champion, bringing a smile to Swerve's face, and leading Hangman to say two words to Swerve on the first "AEW Dynamite" after All In Texas he thought he would never say; thank you.

What AEW did with the feud between Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page is take a man who was a solid midcard act, and a former world champion who had lost his way, and turn them into two of the biggest stars in the company. Both have held the AEW World Championship in the past two years, the main event scene in AEW would be lost without them, and the best part about the whole thing is that this story still has some chapters left to write.

Swerve Strickland vs. Hangman Page; a modern day masterpiece.