Swerve Strickland Explains Why He Underwent Meniscus Surgery After AEW All In Texas

Swerve Strickland addresses his knee injury.

Following last year’s AEW All In Texas event, Strickland made the decision to undergo surgery on his torn meniscus. Days before the surgery, Strickland revealed that he had been dealing with the injury since 2019.

Speaking with Forbes for a new interview, Strickland explained his decision to finally take care of the injury.

“It was nagging pain that, at the time, I was just like, “No, I don’t have to deal with this pain anymore. I don’t have to fight through something that’s irritating me and bothering me. Even in the ring, it wasn’t as bad. It was always post-match. Post-match was limping through airports or having to ice it for so long when I arrived home and stuff. It was like, I’m in this stage of my life and career where I can actually take care of these things.”

Continuing on, Strickland explained why he felt like he was in a position to take care of the injury.

“I’m in a position after the world championship and after All In Texas where it was like, “No, I’m in a good spot. Let me take care of that so I can come back better and come back 100 percent.”

Strickland also said that he wants to make sure that he preserves his body as he gets older.

“Also, you want to know what’s going on with that. You kind of want to take those sneak peeks into your body to understand it more. Now I’m at the age, 36 going on 37 this year, where I’ve got to know what’s going on in my body to preserve it, keep it going, make it look as good as I can, perform as good as I can and feel as good as I can. You want to be here as long as you can on this Earth. That was a good time to take a look and scan everything that’s going on so you don’t miss anything and don’t have any mishaps. You don’t want to be surprised with, “Oh, we found this in you,” and have that take you away from the ring even longer and totally derail your career. We’ve seen it happen to a lot of greats time and time again, and I’m in a great position to be granted the opportunity to be able to do that.”

To round out the topic, Strickland was asked if the surgery has changed how he operates in the ring.

“Absolutely not. They looked at it and saw there was a little bit of arthritis developing. So I’m on the medication, the peptides, and everything to make sure there’s no pain. Not just to mask the pain, but remove the pain and actually improve things, grow the necessary ligaments, get the joint back to where it should be, make it stronger and develop brand-new cells. It was a lot of great research that I wasn’t aware of. Now that I know more about it, it got me back to performing at a top level again.”

Strickland will battle Will Ospreay in the finals of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door. Check out the current lineup for the show by clicking here.

Special thanks to Forbes for the quote(s) in this article.