Swerve Strickland has openly defended the intense and memorable blood-dripping moment from his AEW Full Gear match. In a conversation with former WWE star Mojo Rawley on TMZ Sports, Strickland emphasized the necessity of such high-impact moments in matches of that caliber.

He explained, “I mean, that’s pretty much why we’re here, having this conversation in the first place. If you’re gonna go all out in a match like that, you have to release all the chains, all the handcuffs, understand that there’s going to be criticism because we’re gonna shake the foundation a little bit. Shoutout to a lot of the forums that are picking up, talking about it, discussing it.”

Strickland continued, expressing gratitude for the attention and discussion the match has generated: “We appreciate you, I love you, thank you, for watching, and adding so much noise to the discussion about the match. But in 2023, it’s become really difficult to really catch the attention across all these platforms. People are coming up with five-star matches every pay-per-view. Every pay-per-view, I think there’s a five-star match, guaranteed. This match is put in there to have that. I’m not even a big fan of five stars.”

He further elaborated on his focus on storytelling over ratings: “I’m just more about the story, and if there’s something memorable about it. If it happens to be five stars, some people perceive it as that, cool. I’m all about the business and television and theatre. I feel like that was one of those moments it was like, that was theater. That was cinematic, like, ‘Oh my god. You have to go out of your way to see this because I can’t even believe it.'”

Discussing his journey and AEW's ethos, Strickland, who previously wrestled in WWE as Isaiah “Swerve” Scott from April 2019 to November 2021, joined AEW in March 2022. He has since become an AEW Tag Team Champion with Keith Lee and formed The Mogul Embassy.

Strickland also spoke about AEW's commitment to pushing the envelope: “Whoever has anything to complain about it, feel free. Complain, I implore you. It’s not a good thing to do. I don’t implore anybody to do anything like that. But the fact that it was done, it makes people [go], ‘I don’t believe you. I gotta go see this for myself.’ That’s what that was. We pushed boundaries.”

He concluded by highlighting AEW's unique approach: “That’s what AEW was built on. Pushing boundaries, doing things that other places just couldn’t do, or are not able to do. You’re not able to see that anywhere else.”

“There’s been another product that’s been doing it for so long. They’re excellent at what they do. We gotta find what we’re excellent at what we do. That was the pinnacle of what AEW was like. That’s what we do. We are excellent at what we do.”