Swerve Strickland Makes Shock Return At Full Gear (AEW News)

Swerve Strickland stands tall with Adam Page at AEW Full Gear.

by Andrew Pollard
AEW Full Gear 2025 Adam Page Swerve Strickland
AEW

While the AEW Full Gear 2025 main event saw Samoa Joe defeat Adam Page to become a two-time AEW World Champion, the PPV itself went off air with the returning Swerve Strickland standing tall alongside Hangman.

As for that steel cage main event, the Samoan Submission Machine pinned Page after a Muscle Buster onto the AEW World Title following a heel turn from Hook. And as Joe, Hook, Powerhouse Hobbs, Katsuori Shibata, and their Opps Dojo trainees celebrated post-match, the arena lights suddenly went off. From there, a video started to play of a burning house, as a figure could be seen in the entrance way. It would soon become apparent that the figure was Prince Nana, and he'd soon be joined by Swerve Strickland - complete with a new theme tune.

With the steel cage having been lifted, Swerve made his way down to the ring, where the Opps offered up the fallen Page to Strickland. Of course, those two had been long-time rivals previously. However, Swerve instead attacked the Opps Dojo trainees, as Joe, Hook, Hobbs, and Shibata made a quick exit up the ramp, where they gloated back towards the ring at Samoa Joe being the new AEW World Champion.

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For Swerve Strickland, he took a hiatus from AEW after Forbidden Door back in August, with the former AEW World Champion taking time to heal up a torn meniscus that had been bothering him for several years.

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Senior Writer
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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.