WINC Watchlist: Swerve Strickland's Greatest Matches

In the 15 years that he has been a professional wrestler, Swerve Strickland has already achieved more than some people could do in double the amount of time. He started his career by splitting his time between sporadic independent dates in the North East, and the United States Army Reserve, but after leaving the Reserve in 2015, Strickland's career skyrocketed from there.

He was one of the most exciting names during the indie boom of the 2010s, with his work around the United States eventually getting him signed to WWE as Isaiah "Swerve" Scott in 2019. Strickland's time in WWE was eventful, if a little brief as he was only in the company for two years, but he did win the WWE NXT North American Championship and led the "Hit Row" stable, which even made it to the main roster. However, it was when he made the jump from WWE to AEW in early 2022 where Strickland's career truly took off.

Strickland has been a member of the AEW roster for nearly four years at the time of writing, and in that time he has won the AEW World Tag Team Champions, became the first African American to win the AEW World Championship, and became the first black wrestler to headline a wrestling show at Wembley Stadium. In 2024 he signed a new contract with AEW which makes him one of the highest paid wrestlers in the entire world, and looks to have a long time in the AEW main event scene left in him.

With it being black history month, we here at Wrestling Inc. felt like it was only right to shine the spotlight on some of the finest black wrestlers in the business today, and giving you a watchlist of some of their best matches for you to enjoy. Strickland has been through some absolute wars in his 15 year career, and it's almost guaranteed that he will be in several more over the next few years, but for the time being, here are our picks for the five best matches of Swerve Strickland's career in chronological order.

Before he was "The Most Dangerous Man in AEW," Swerve Strickland was tearing up the independent scene throughout the 2010s. He was routinely stealing the show at any DEFY Wrestling event in his home state of Washington, he was putting his pain threshold to the test in the Death Match world of CZW, and when he traveled to Boyle Heights, California to become a member of the Lucha Underground roster, he became known as Killshot.

Killshot was a military veteran who carried around the dog tags of the fallen comrades he lost on the battlefield, but one day he got a letter from someone he thought had died at war, Dante Fox (better known as AR Fox to most wrestling fans). The two men would feud all the way through season three of Lucha Underground, culminating in this, the "Hell of War" match, a match some fans know as "Three Stages of Hell," Killshot and Dante Fox were going to go to war one more time to finally settle their personal score, and they were both more than willing to go to hell in order to prove their point.

To say this match is violent would be a dramatic understatement. It's genuinely one of the most brutal wrestling matches to ever take place on national television, and not too far off what both men had gone through during their separate careers in CZW. This is a Death Match with the largest capital D possible, but it also happens to be one of the greatest matches in modern wrestling history. Is the match too bloody for some? Sure, but wrestling is a subjective artform and not everything is going to please everyone. Having said that, you really are missing out if you don't watch this match at least once.

The first fall is a First Blood match, and Fox decides to make things very logical by trying to find something that will instantly draw blood, an enormous pane of glass which the first fall is built around. Whoever goes through it instantly loses the fall, and that happens to be Killshot. The second fall ramps up the chaos with a No Disqualification match, giving both guys the freedom to do whatever they want to each other and they do just that. Fox takes bumps on the broken glass and through a barbed wire board, leaving his back looking like an abstract painting and allowing Killshot to win the second fall.

Finally, a Medical Evac match, basically an Ambulance Match taken to the most extreme degree. You talk about people wanting their pound of flesh from people they hate, a literal piece of Fox's back gets ripped off during this third fall, that's how violent this match and it's beautiful. Arguably the greatest match in Lucha Underground history, Killshot and Dante Fox went to hell and back in this one, and they were never the same after it.

Recency bias might cloud a few opinions on Swerve Strickland as some people might think that his best work has only come in the last two or three years, but his first year in AEW was full of big surprises, with this AEW World Tag Team Championship match at AEW All Out 2022 being the cream of the crop.

Strickland had formed Swerve In Our Glory with Keith Lee through their mutual hatred of Team Taz, and their natural chemistry carried them to the top of the tag team division in the summer of 2022. At the same time, The Acclaimed had steadily been growing in popularity and had a legitimate claim to being the best homegrown duo in AEW history, but they had one problem; they didn't have the AEW World Tag Team Champions to prove that they were the best. This led to what would become the first in a three match series at the All Out pay-per-view in September, which for many people was one of the best matches of the entire year.

It takes a lot to boo a team as loved as Swerve In Our Glory, but that's how over The Acclaimed were in 2022. Max Caster and Anthony Bowens had organically become the most over tag team in the company, with a little help from "Daddy Ass" Billy Gunn, and the Chicago crowd were ready for a changing of the guard in this title match. The question was would Strickland and Lee allow that to happen? 

Due to the amount of things that went down immediately after All Out 2022, this match doesn't get nearly enough love, but watching it back is like watching a company catching lightning in a bottle because even though I knew the outcome, I also wanted AEW to call an audible and give the belts to Caster and Bowens. The match gradually moves through the gears, but just as The Acclaimed start to take the lead, Bowens jams his knee and is left with one good wheel. However, the excellent selling from Bowens, the fiery comeback spots from Caster, and the great heel work from the champions naturally takes this match from good to a match of the year contender.

This match exceeded any and all expectations it had going into the show. Lee looked like a behemoth throughout the whole thing, Strickland was slimy enough in the heel role to get genuine heat while being slick enough to still get reactions for what he could pull off, and The Acclaimed came out of this match looking like the biggest babyfaces in AEW. Using Bowens' knee as way to set up different hope spots had fans falling over themselves at the thought of seeing new champions being crowned, but The Acclaimed simply ran out of gas in the face of the dominant champions. Tag team wrestling, when it hits, boy does it hit.

This is it ladies and gentlemen, the moment where Swerve Strickland went from being someone who was a very upper midcarder to someone who AEW had no choice but to put in the main event. While these two men would have another great match a month prior at AEW WrestleDream 2023, the Texas Death Match between Strickland and Hangman Page from AEW Full Gear 2023 remains as one of the greatest spectacles in company history.

The feud between Strickland and Page has been well documented at this point, but it bares repeating that it actually started with an ounce of frustration on Strickland's side of things. He was tired of the chances Page got because of who he was friends with and thought the win at WrestleDream would be enough to motivate Page to the point where he would care about being the top dog in AEW again. When that didn't happen, Strickland made things personal by breaking into Page's house and lighting a fiery hatred underneath the former AEW World Champion that wouldn't go out for a full year. At the time, some fans thought it might be too soon for a match this brutal between Strickland and Page, but when Full Gear was over, this match was all anyone was talking about.

Unlike the "Hell of War" against Dante Fox, this match starts in third gear. Page rushes the ring like a bull in a china shop and the blood starts flowing from Strickland almost immediately after a staple gun is introduced. He gets staples to the chest, a finger painting from Page's son stapled to his face, and just when you think he's going to let up, Page begins drinking Strickland's blood. That is all in the first five minutes, and that level of intensity remains throughout the entire match. Cinder blocks, broken glass, enough barbed wire to surround an entire farm, these two men beat each other into oblivion to the point where the sloppier moments like the barbed wire coming loose from a chair and whipping Page in the face becomes truly uncomfortable viewing.

What makes this match stand out against all the other Death Matches we see in wrestling is that everything mattered. If someone broke into your house, stood over your child's crib and forced you to uproot your entire family and move elsewhere, you'd want to slaughter them as well. It's the story going into it that makes this match so special, it's not violence for the sake of violence, it's violent because it needs to be. The interference from Brian Cage at the end does knock it down half a peg on a rewatch, but other than that, this is still essential viewing. A match so barbaric it was covered by TMZ and legitimately broke some people's brains for how disgusting it was, and to think, these two would only ramp up the violence less than a year later.

The summer of 2024 belonged to Swerve Strickland as he used the success of the bloodbath with Hangman Page at AEW Full Gear 2023, and his run in the inaugural Continental Classic tournament, to catapult himself into the AEW World Championship picture where he remains to this day. He dethroned Samoa Joe at AEW Dynasty 2024, kicking off what Strickland called the "Dynasty Era" of AEW which would be led by him, and from April to August of that year, he vanquished any and all comers, from Claudio Castagnoli and Roderick Strong, to Christian Cage and Will Ospreay.

However, AEW All In London 2024 wasn't about Swerve Strickland, it was about Bryan Danielson as he won the 2024 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament to earn a shot at Strickland's title. "The American Dragon" decided to up the ante due to his persistent neck problems and the fact that he was in the final year of his full-time wrestling career, putting his entire career on the line in the main event of AEW's biggest show of the year. Danielson had already had one fairy tale ending to one stadium show in his career, could lightning strike twice? 

This match is obviously aided by the fact that Danielson is just that good at professional wrestling. Truly one of the best of all time, he is on top form as the scrappy underdog babyface who technically has nothing to lose because if Strickland does win, Danielson can finally be with his family like he always wanted to be. With that said, this is a watchlist celebrating Strickland and he definitely deserves his flowers for what he accomplished in this match. He had spent his entire reign as AEW World Champion as a babyface who no one could possibly boo, but just like the Swerve In Our Glory/Acclaimed bout, Strickland slots effortlessly into the heel role and plays it up perfectly, even making Danielson's daughter cry for how nasty he is being.

Strickland does such a good job at being dominant that it really makes Danielson's comebacks feel even more special, and that moment where Danielson is screaming "I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!" at his kids while Strickland is kicking him in the chest will put goosebumps on every part of your body. What makes that moment even better is that Danielson lands the Busaiku Knee and it does nothing, Strickland doesn't drop, if you listen carefully you can hear 50,000 stomachs drop in fear that Danielson might actually lose. Thankfully, he doesn't lose, and while I could personally do without the Hangman Page interference in the closing stages, it doesn't take any of the joy away from the eventual win for the "American Dragon." AEW are returning to Wembley Stadium in August 2026, and all I'll say is best of luck to whoever main events that show because this is what you have to top.

We started with "Hell of War," we had a Texas Death flavored middle, and capping off to cap off this watchlist, we will be turning all the lights off. If there's one thing we have all learned about Swerve Strickland through this list, it's that the guy can be truly sadistic in some of his matches, and it got to the point in his feud with Hangman Page that AEW washed their hands of the whole thing and said the company wouldn't be responsible for what happens at AEW All Out 2024.

One year on from the promo which started this entire feud, Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page had reached a level of hatred unmatched in AEW history. Home invasions, drinking blood, burning down houses, it really was reaching a point where fans asked "What more could these guys possibly do to each other?" Strickland and Page answered that in this match. It starts off very much like the Texas Death Match as they both trying to behead each other via a lowering Steel Cage, but the similarities don't stop there.

The roles are reversed when the staple gun is brought in as Strickland is the one with the pictures and Page is the one who is going to have those pictures physically attached to his face, and Strickland brings back the no-selling of the staples, only this time in a babyface capacity. The cinder block makes another appearance in this feud, but unlike the usual wrestling cinder block that evaporates into millions of pieces if you sneeze to hard around it, this was a very real cinder block that didn't give an inch. You can see the abrasions on Page's back after taking a Vertebreaker, and the Powerbomb Strickland takes on it is truly uncomfortable viewing.

That's probably the best way to describe this match, uncomfortable. It's far less bloody than the Texas Death Match from Full Gear, but for what it lacks in blood, it makes up in moments that make least squeamish wrestling fans in the world go "That's a bit much." Where this match differs from the Full Gear encounter is the ending. The Brian Cage interference a year earlier kind of ruins the flow of things at Full Gear, but the All Out match ends at the most violent possible moment. After fighting over a piece of Strickland's burnt house, Page hits Strickland with a vicious unprotected chair shot to the head, all while Strickland has a hypodermic needle stuck in his cheek. It really doesn't get more uncomfortable than that.

Professional wrestling is something that thrives on hatred, and this match is the embodiment of hate. It's violent, it's uncomfortable, but it works so well. Page literally made people shriek in terror when it looked like he was going back for seconds it's that good. In a world where everyone wants to make "cinema," this was a horror movie.