How does the rivalry of Adam “Hangman” Page and Swerve Strickland hold up?
In 2023, Swerve and Hangman arguably had one of the most memorable rivalries in the past decade. This feud helped elevate Strickland to the next level and secure his future as the first Black man to win the AEW World title. Hangman Page benefitted greatly from this feud as well.
The current AEW World Champion got a much needed character change that massively over with the fans. Hangman Page wouldn’t be the man that he is today without his feud against Strickland. The same thing can be said about the former AEW World Champion.
Swerve reflected on the rivalry during his appearance on That Hashtag Show and he feels it’s on par with some of the best stories in pro wrestling history.
“I put our story against any story in wrestling history, honestly, because it’s just two men. There’s other elements that played into these things. There’s characters that came through… they were accessories to our story but, at the end of the day, when Hangman’s in the ring, you hear, ‘Who’s house? Swerve’s house’ chants. When Swerve’s in the ring, you hear ‘Cowboy sh*t’ chants.
Anytime he passes by the locker room and sees Swerve Strickland or little elements of, like, me holding a chain… your brain goes right to that man, and that’s just a testament to our vulnerability. Our whole story was based on vulnerability. Well, even before that (Hangman burning Swerve’s house down), it was about me coming out of a coffin from Sting and it was about Hangman winning a Battle Royal at All Out in 2023. It was like, ‘Dude, what are you doing celebrating winning a charity Battle Royal in the pre-show? This whole company was built off of you.
You’re a former world champion, and you’re settling with this? What’s going on here?’ Him coming from a low of like, literally being a first-round draft pick, high expectations and then getting that and then falling so low, and then coming right back up and then, negativity is kind of what inspired him and brought him back.
Not necessarily positive influence. It was negative… and him being vulnerable to lay all these things out on the table and then me being vulnerable to just lay out all these things on the table. Some were real, some were fabricated. But that’s up for the audience to pick and choose and find out what it is. ‘I don’t know if that’s really a thing,’ and dive into that, and it’s just two men, two flawed men that end up having a lot more in common in the end than we think.”
Do you think Swerve Strickland vs. Hangman Page is on par with some of the greatest wrestling stories ever told?