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Last night, the Hangman and Swerve Strickland entered the same match against one another for the first time since their conflict was put on the back burner for four months. And, as we all saw, their hatred for one another is still an incandescent conflagration that lights up the screen.
Now, with the AEW version of the Match Beyond fresh in our minds, let us go back eight months to the most pivotal match of their entire feud: Texas Death. I've spilled a whole lot of ink to explain the historical context, detail the blow-by-blow, and analyze the literary and cultural symbolism of this half-hour of carnage. But I think you will find that this is one match that warrants this level of deep dissection. So, return with me to one awful (or awe-full) night last November:
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
The Hangman ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Adam Page
"Swerve" ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Scott Strickland
The Prince ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Nana Bandoh
SCENES
ACT I ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... AEW wrestling shows in arenas in Indianapolis, Denver, Seattle, Independence ... in Houston's Graffiti Park, Page's home in Aaron's Creek & an AEW show in LA
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... from mid-September to mid-November 2023
ACT II ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... One horrific night in LA (or Hell) Nov 18 2023 at the Forum
ACT III ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... AEW wrestling shows in arenas in Minneapolis, Montreal, Newark, Jacksonville, Charleston, New Orleans, Rio Grande Valley, Phoenix, Huntsville, and Greensboro
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... … ... ... ... ... ... ... from late November 2023 to early March 2024
ACT IV ... ... ... ... ... AEW wrestling shows in arenas in various cities … and Swerve's childhood home
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... … ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... from early July to Sep 7 2024
Our Story so far...
In Act I, Swerve Strickland told us about having spent ten nights in a coffin, wherein he had clarified his purpose… leading him to challenge the Hangman for his station. Then Adam Page told us about the raincloud sent by a vengeful God that had washed away his lifeblood, leaving him a pale reflection of himself. Later, Hangman used his enemy's blood to sign a pact between the two of them on the terms of hostilities. Page then entered enemy territory and lost his first battle to Strickland. The crooked way that Swerve and his chancellor Nana had stolen this victory led Hangman to resolve to stop Strickland from using corrupt tactics to capture AEW gold. So Page then blocked Swerve's attempt to collude with the Prince to steal a TNT championship opportunity. Swerve looked to balance the scales—or perhaps raise the stakes to pressure the Hangman to fold—by invading Page's home and directing threats and claims of a lifelong debt of gold toward his infant firstborn—as if he were a wicked fairy. In response, Hangman invited Swerve to step into Hell—specifically his violent signature match: the Texas Death Match, where the premise is to brutalize each other with no holds or weapons barred till one man can't stand back up.
Righteous Revenge? Or Tragedy?
The Texas Death Match between Swerve Strickland and Adam Page at the AEW Full Gear event on November 18th was one of the most acclaimed matches of 2023. 27 different contributors and friends to the Pro Wrestling Musings site sent in ballots for our 2023 AEW Awards, and 19 of those counted this match as one of their top-3 AEW matches of the year, more than any other match.
[Check out PWMusing's 2023 AEW MOTY Rankings]
But I was among the 8 who didn't rate it… I've watched this match more times than any other match that I didn't exactly enjoy, and I've just never been able to quite get into it. And, for me at least, I think it comes down to a dissonance between the expectations that were set up in the build to the match and the story they actually chose to tell in the match itself.
One of the most common plots in action media—from pro wrestling, to video games, to movies and shows—is a story of righteous revenge. The antagonist does something truly unforgivable and vile to the protagonist, and the protagonist goes on the warpath, doing darker things than it would normally be acceptable for a protagonist to do, because the provocation makes those actions understandable. That's the dark, subversive draw of revenge tales: they allow the audience to identify with doing terrible things without feeling guilty.
This was the type of story that the Hangman X Swerve feud had seemed to be. With Strickland having broken into Page's home and having broadcast himself evidently menacing Page's toddler in his crib, the inciting incident seemed to be setting up the simple story of a good man doing some bad things to get revenge for some unforgivable wrongs done to him and, even moreso, to his family.
What we got instead felt a lot (to me) as if I had seen a movie trailer that gave me the impression: "oh, this is gonna be like John Wick but with a pig instead of a dog. Or, I guess the pig was pignapped not pig-murdered, so maybe more like Taken with a pig instead of a daughter… and with Nick Cage in the lead? Sounds like wacky fun!" But then instead I get a critically-acclaimed, thought-provoking, but sort of depressing film like 2021's Pig.
Look! There is an adorable pig in it! This couldn't be a .... SAD movie???
A case could be made that regardless of the natural desire to see a wrondoer get their comeuppance, the Texas Death Match couldn't be a simple story of Hangman's revenge, because the entire purpose of the Swerve X Hangman feud was to elevate Swerve Strickland to be a credible main-event player. But a counter-argument might be made that Swerve could afford going down to 1-1, and allowing the audience their catharsis, because it's Hangman's signature match, plus Swerve could still come out ahead overall by winning a rubber match.
What Makes it Texas Death?
So what exactly is a Texas Death Match? And how exactly was it established as Hangman Adam Page's signature match?
A commonly repeated legend is that the first Texas Death Match was a contest that lasted for hours with no winner and had to be shut down for violating the town curfew in Amarillo, Texas. This epic struggle was between the fathers of two of the biggest legends in wrestling history: "the Living Legend" Terry Funk's dad, Dory, Sr. … and Iron Mike DiBiase, the dad of one of the most hated villains of the 1980's WWF, the Million Dollar Man. [1]
But in wrestling, the best story always trumps the truth, and in truth Dory Funk, Sr. had already been in a dozen Texas Death matches before that legendary night in 1965. And the true innovator of Texas Death was a performer who is mostly forgotten today, but can be credited with more than one amazingly influential innovation* in pro wrestling: Dizzy Davis. [2]
The year was 1955, ten years before the battle that the Funk clan would later claim as the origin of Texas Death, but over ten years after Dizzy Davis introduced a concept with arguably even bigger historic influences on pro wrestling, (that you may read the details of in the footnote below.) The Texan Davis was working in Atlanta, Georgia and feuding with a competitor named Jerry Graham. Davis had already lost to Graham twice, but for whatever storyline reason those decisions were not considered conclusive. So Davis proposed/invented a special, uniquely-violent Texas-flavored match to finally settle things. But then Davis lost again, AND it still wasn't settled, establishing from the first that the TDM's reputation as a feud-finisher is overrated. (Davis finally defeated Graham in yet another rematch, this time best two of three falls.) [3]
Since then, many wrestlers have used the stipulation as a signature match in their careers, whether because they are Texan, or because they had success with the stip while IN Texas, or fighting a Texan. That last is the original reason the match became associated with Virginian "cowboy" Adam Page. The Texan monster Lance Archer had scored a massive upset by taking the IWGP US title in a Texas Death match from one of the biggest stars of AEW, Jon Moxley. Later, Archer would look to repeat history by challenging new AEW World Champion Adam Page to make his first defense in the violent match that Archer believed favored him. But instead, after putting both of them through a folding table outside the ring, Page was the one of the two to (barely) return to his feet before the ref's 10-count to retain his title.
Over the next several months, Hangman went on to defeat Adam Cole and Jon Moxley in Texas Death Matches as well, solidifying the match type as his signature. Cole's defeat was very similar to Archer's...
[Check out what Joe had to say about the battle of the Adams at the time in #AEWeekly #13]
...but Page's manner of defeating Moxley was extremely noteworthy. As arguably the top brawler in the world, Moxley went the extra mile to really put over the Hangman's toughness—taking advantage of the fact that AEW's version of Texas Death rules also allows submissions, and making reference to Page's notorious nickname—by tapping out while the Hangman held him choking by a chain forming a noose around his neck and draped over the middle ring-rope.
[Check out what Peter had to say about the Moment above at the time in #AEWeekly #58]
This win was particularly noteworthy because VERY few opponents have ever made Moxley submit. See the table below [4] for comparison to some other top stars through the years with a never-say-die reputation:
As you can see, of the four doughty grapplers, only John Cena has a lower rate of recorded submission losses than Moxley. So it should be clear what a feather in Page's cap it was to be the first man to make Moxley lose a match by giving up in over 10 years, [5] and how that—along with a 3-0 record—established the Hangman's reputation as practically unbeatable in the context of Texas Death.
Texas Death Begins
It is the November night of AEW Full Gear 2023, and the Texas Death match isn't in the main-event slot—as there is no championship on the line—yet it is undoubtedly the most anticipated match of the night, and would turn out to be a very tough act for the World Champion and his challenger to follow.
[Check out what Gareth and I had to say about this strange epic at the time in #AEWeekly #94]
Before the match begins, ring announcer Justin Roberts explains the rules one more time with commendable brevity: the only ways to win will be knockout or submission. What is unsaid but implied are all the ways you can't lose: since you can't lose by being disqualified, that means you can attack any body part, and use any weapon. And since you can't lose by being counted out of the ring, that means you can fight all over the arena if you choose.
Then, Strickland's iconic entrance music starts up and a bevy of lovely dancers enter, followed immediately by Prince Nana. As the hook of "Big Pressure" drops, Nana and his backup dancers begin to perform Nana's silly Carlton-esque dance, with many in the audience joining in on the fun. Swerve stalks out behind Nana with a grim glare. This makes for a nice storytelling compromise, allowing the fans to enjoy a big, fun entrance, and for Swerve's team to mock how serious this is for Page, while Swerve himself shows the appropriate appreciation of the danger and gravitas of his situation.
They enter the ring, and Strickland gestures to the ring crew for a mic. But he then immediately passes it on to Nana to lead the crowd in a call-and-response of "Whose house?" "Swerve's house!"
Hangman, on the other hand, skips an entrance altogether—the moment you'd expect his theme to start, he instead sprints to the ring to attack Swerve unprepared. As the match-start bell rings, Page takes Strickland down with a double-leg, while peppering him with punches. Swerve rolls them over so he is on top, getting in a few return punches. Those few strikes are Swerve's first and last offense for the first six minutes or so of bloody and brutal total dominance by the Hangman.
Both men return to their feet, and Strickland rushes at Page. But his zealousness costs him, as Hangman snatches him up on the approach, using his momentum to hit a pop-up powerbomb. This leaves Swerve staggered and struggling to return to his feet, which is exactly the situation Hangman needs to go to the ring apron to set up his normally-decisive finishing move, the flipping forearm attack he calls the Buckshot lariat.
The irony for Hangman is that this move almost universally keeps his opponents stunned long enough to pin their shoulders to the mat for the ref's count of three. If not for the stipulation he chose himself in order to take his pound of flesh from Swerve, he might have had a very quick victory this night.
The irony for Swerve is that, when he rolls out of the ring after getting flipped heels over head by Hangman's forearm, this would be the perfect tactic to avoid being pinned in the middle of the ring, if this were a normal match. But in Texas Death, pins are irrelevant, and being outside the ring just makes him vulnerable to being smashed into harder obstacles than the ring ropes and turnbuckle pads.
Hangman hasn't forgotten the match stipulation, letting Swerve "escape," and instead paces the ring like a lion in a cage, and makes the "are you not entertained?" gesture toward the audience, prompting a "Cowboy Shit" chant in his support.
Hangman then rolls out of the ring as well, and stalks behind Swerve, confounding his attempts to increase the distance between them and Irish whipping Swerve into the barricades several times as they circle the ring.
Referee Paul Turner attempts to start a 10-count once or twice while Strickland is laying on the ringside floor after being smashed into a barricade, but an important aspect of the knockout stipulation is that returning to your feet isn't the only way to stop the count of ten. Your opponent resuming his attack will also stop it, and Adam Page has no interest in giving Strickland respite: both because he knows he hasn't done enough to keep him down for 10 yet, and also, even if he had, he's nowhere near satisfied that he's punished him enough yet.
Hangman rolls Swerve back into the ring and then grabs and folds up a steel chair set up at ringside and tosses that in as well. As Swerve lays on the mat, Hangman goes looking under the ring for more plunder to use as weapons: he retrieves a roll of black tape and a staple gun.
Page then rolls into the ring and advances toward Strickland, who has regained his feet as well: so, to head off any comeback from Swerve, Hangman HURLS the steel chair at his face. While Swerve rolls on the mat in pain, Hangman retrieves the electrical tape from the mat and binds Strickland's wrists together in front of him. Once he's made Swerve's arms fully ineffective for both offense and defense, Hangman picks the staple gun off the mat, and staples him right in the chest! Swerve grimaces in utter agony and rolls around on the mat once again.
Swerve rolls out of the ring and attempts to flee again, but Hangman is right behind him, repeatedly driving staples into his torso as he follows him around the ring. When they get to the opposite side, Page rolls Strickland back in and then re-enters himself, picking up the chair from where it had bounced earlier. Rather than swinging the chair, Hangman uses it edge-on as a battering ram to Swerve's forehead.
Swerve writhes on the mat in pain again, as the shot to his forehead begins to bleed. Hangman stomps around the ring with that same Gladiator gesture, this time with chair in hand, and it draws a cheer, but a very subdued one, as if he is nearing the end of the crowd's appetite for his bloody vengeance.
Two Pivot Points
Adam Page then drops the steel chair and pulls a colorful piece of paper out of his pocket. Sharp-eyed fans will recognize it as a specific bit of karma finally returning to haunt Swerve Strickland: the very finger-painting that he had pulled off Hangman's fridge, ripped, and discarded on his kitchen floor.
At this point, Swerve has struggled back up as far as his knees. We can now see that the wound by his hairline from the chair attack is bleeding profusely. This extended heat sequence by Hangman has at this point finally had its intended effect, as the tide of sympathy begins to flow more and more towards Swerve and the crowd rallies behind him, organically breaking out in a massive "whose house? Swerve's house!" chant. (One might suspect Nana of pushing things in this direction, but you can see him in the background looking on worriedly, not cheerleading.)
Adam then takes his kid's art and staples it to Swerve's cheek, drawing a horrified gasp from the audience that silences the chants. It fails to stick and flutters to the mat, so Hangman snatches it back up and tries again, turning his enemy's other cheek.
This time the attachment is successful and Swerve Strickland and Hangman Jr.'s finger-painting are momentarily made one, while Swerve's blood begins to seep in and add a new color to the design. Page can't let Swerve keep it, though, so gruesomely yanks the staple out of his cheek again, which prompts the audience to shout an "ohhhh!" of sympathy pain, while Swerve thrashes in agony on the mat once again.
Swerve gets back up to his knees again, and this time Hangman slides up to him on his back to put his face under Swerve's, grabs him by the forelock to pull them face-to-face within inches of each other, and then aims the trickle of blood streaming down from Swerve's scalp to land into his own open mouth, to drink the blood of his enemy.
At this point, Hangman Page has now topped Swerve Strickland's Maleficent act for doing the weirdest thing I've ever seen on a wrestling screen. I have thoughts about this moment—many, many thoughts. Far too many to go into now and interrupt the flow of the match itself, so I'll put a pin in this and return to it after we complete the blow-by-blow. But consider this much, for now—normally, in a tale of revenge, the question would be: did what the Villain did to him justify what the Dark Hero does? But here the question is: does it even explain it at all?
Why would Hangman want to drink Swerve's blood to begin with? It doesn't cause Swerve pain, it doesn't make him less able to get to his feet… So… what was the point?
We'll get back to that. But I would posit that this strange and confounding act by Adam Page is the pivot point of their entire feud. (But not of this match, which will be something Swerve does a few moments later.)
Hangman taking the blood of his nemesis into his mouth begins a roar from the audience as they realize they are seeing something both bizarre and extraordinary. Hangman then springs to his feet and sprays the blood into the air. I could not make this up.
The Hangman climbs to the second turnbuckle and glares out challengingly at the crowd, as if to say "What? Too much?" They respond with an indistinct thrum of a chant: the sound of a throng who can agree only on a cadence, but not on the lyrics—seemingly torn between "Cowboy Shit," "You Sick Fuck," and "Holy Shit!"
Page climbs out of the ring to again explore underneath for more plunder, this time pulling out a coil of barbed wire and then a steel chair pre-wrapped dozens of times around by more barbed wire. Page returns to the ring, barbed-wire chair in hand. Turner attempts to admonish Page but backs off at a hint of body language from the Hangman that he might advance towards him.
Hangman pulls Swerve to his feet by the hair from seated on the mat, then backs away for enough distance to take a big swing with the chair. This time it's Hangman who is overzealous: with his enemy's hands bound in front of him, he rears back focused 100% on offense, with his steel chair aimed straight at Swerve's skull, but it's Strickland this time who cuts off Page, with a quick kick to the crotch. Almost six minutes into the match, this was the very first offense from Swerve since the opening exchange of grounded punches.
Both men fall to the mat and Page rolls to one side of the ring writhing from the low blow, while Strickland rolls to the opposite side to get assistance from his manager. Nana rushes to his side and has scissors at the ready to finally free Swerve's wrists.
Both men are down, so the referee begins a double ten-count: if one of the men were to return to his feet while the other failed to, he would be declared the winner. In one corner, Swerve uses the turnbuckles to assist him in regaining his feet, while in the other Hangman grasps for a weapon, this time going for the staple gun again. The two bitter enemies face off with defiant glares, and then Page staples Strickland in the chest again, but to a very different reaction than before.
All of the previous times Page had stapled Strickland's flesh, Swerve's reaction had combined excruciating pain... and horror. The change in his demeanor from this point forward may reflect simply maxing out on the horror to the point of numbness... or an adrenaline high?... but I prefer to see it as the six minutes of unrelenting agony lifting Swerve into an ecstatic spiritual state where pain is no longer his enemy.
Swerve slowly turns a hate-filled glare at his enemy and begins to advance on him. Hangman staples his chest again! And again! But Swerve is unfazed and keeps backing Hangman up.
Page changes tack and goes for a staple to the head, but Strickland makes a grab for the weapon, and they struggle for control of it. Swerve gradually turns it away from his own face and towards Hangman's and then staples him right between the eyes.
Page now flops to the mat, writhing in pain, which flips the staple gun out of Swerve's hand. Paul Turner checks on the wound on Strickland's scalp, and then Swerve stoops down to recover the staple gun from the mat. But NOT to resume the attack! Instead, Swerve turns the staple gun towards himself and staples his own chest. A crazy grin blooms on Strickland's face with the dawning realization of his own imperviousness to pain, and he staples himself 4 more times for good measure!
As this grinning red-bathed demon retrieves the barbed-wire steel chair from the mat, the crowd starts a "YOU SICK FUCK!" chant in earnest. It is this moment of Swerve Strickland moving beyond the world of pain that I would consider the turning point of the match….
War of Attrition
As chants proclaiming him "You Sick Fuck!" ring out through the Forum, a blood-soaked Strickland retrieves the barbed-wire wrapped chair from the mat and wedges it between the middle and top turnbuckle. He then helps Hangman to his feet and takes him by the arm to lead/force him to run from one side of the ring to the other headfirst into the waiting chair.
Now both men are bleeding from the head, but… not enough for Swerve: he grabs the coiled barbed-wire strand that Hangman had retrieved but had not had a chance to use, and rakes it across his nemesis' forehead to exacerbate his wound.
Swerve then leaves Hangman laying and rolls to the outside. While Page struggles to his feet, Strickland retrieves his own signature weapon from under the ring: a cinder block much like the one he had used to put a violent end to his erstwhile partnership with former Texas A&M linebacker Keith Lee.
[Check out what Criaig had to say about Swerve's violent betrayal of Keith Lee at the time in #AEWeekly #48]
Swerve lifts the block from the floor to set on the edge of the ring then climbs up onto the ring apron. Meanwhile, Page has returned to his feet and starts punching Strickland to prevent him fully entering. Swerve, caught on the wrong side of the ropes, clings to the top rope with one hand to keep his footing on the apron edge, while returning fire with the other.
Page attempts a springboard leaping attack, but Strickland catches him and drags him over the ring ropes to balance on the edge with him. They go back and forth on the apron until Swerve grabs Page's head to pull him in and bite his forehead. This has Hangman in position for Swerve to muscle him up into a fireman's carry, and from there Swerve tosses him down backfirst onto the cinderblock.
Page flops from the edge of the ring onto the ringside floor. (And so does what's left of the cinderblock… And, yes: the half-broken block IS Chekhov's gun!) Nana shouts encouragement at an exhausted Swerve, who sits on the edge of the ring half flopped-over, while looking down on his fallen foe scrabbling at the barricade to struggle back to his feet while Turner counts up to his deadline.
Swerve gets his feet under him to stand up at ringside and grabs Page by the neck just as he reaches his own feet. Swerve then drags him along and smashes him into the barricade, and then pulls him up with him so both men are balanced edge-first on the barricade, where they lock into that position where it would be a piledriver if Swerve gets the leverage advantage, or a back body drop if it's Page. To the sound of a massive "Whose House?" chant in his support, Swerve wins the struggle and drives Hangman's skull into the edge of the steel barricade.
Hangman flops to his back on the ringside floor once again after a second devastating move in quick succession. Swerve props himself up squatting with his arms draped over the barricade, while blinking away from his eyes the blood gushing down over his face from his scalp. Nana gives his client a bottle of water to help clear his eyes, and Swerve pours about half over the top of his head, but then ambles over and pours the rest onto Adam Page derisively.
The Hangman crawls over to ringside and struggles to use the ring apron to regain his feet. But meanwhile, around the corner and out of his sight, Swerve had already rolled back in and is above him inside the ring, and he pulls him back in by his hair.
Swerve throws a few big punches at Hangman's head as they stand face to face in the ring. At this point, sympathy briefly turns towards Hangman again and another "Cowboy Shit!" chant starts up. But this is about the last we get of crowd reactions specifically supporting either man. From this point out, it's mostly horrified gasps, or bloodthirsty rooting for the violence itself. This has become a war of attrition… Or, more bluntly, a war of atrocity and endurance. A war between two monsters, with nothing left for the audience to cheer but the blood.
…Something both men are now covered with—both their own and each other's—as they square up and trade shots. Hangman gets the better of the exchange, but when he whips Swerve into the ropes intending to hit him on the rebound, Swerve reverses, hitting a high boot to Page's face. Swerve then runs the ropes, intending to repeat this success, but this time Hangman catches him bodily as he comes back at him and hits a fallaway slam, (falling backwards to the mat while tossing his opponent behind him.)
The fatigue both men are feeling now begins to show. Announcer Excalibur notes that Page normally would kip up after the fallaway slam, but he doesn't have the reserves for that. Both men slowly regain their feet while the referee counts. Swerve grabs the strand of barb-wire intending to hit Page with it, but as he charges, Hangman catches him and hits another fallaway slam. They return to their feet again, and rush each other again, but this time it's Page who has the barb wire in hand and he puts it over Swerve's head to gouge at him like a crown of thorns.
Page pulls it back off as Swerve falls to his knees. Page then wraps the barb wire around Swerve's body and does another fallaway slam to him that way.
Swerve retreats out of the ring, while Hangman retrieves the barb-wire wrapped chair from where it had been wedged. As Swerve recovers his feet on the floor, Hangman climbs to the top turnbuckle with the chair and hits the Orihara Moonsault (a flying somersault from the turnbuckle) with the chair held flat against himself so he's landing on Swerve with that between them, instead of just with his torso.
After both men return to their feet, Swerve attempts to retreat back up the ramp, but Page catches him by the belt and swings him back into the ring. As Swerve tries to regain his vertical base inside the ring, the bloodied Hangman glares out at the crowd, who begin to chant "this is AWESOME!" Hangman and Swerve are in respective positions for him to hit his devastating Buckshot lariat finishing maneuver again, so Nana tries to earn his keep by preventing it, grabbing at Page's boot from the floor. Hangman kicks him away, but the delay allows Swerve to be prepared with a counter.
The two men go back and forth with counters until Page tries grabbing up the barb-wire chair and rushing at his opponent with it, but Swerve gets his boot up causing the chair to smash into Page's face instead. Swerve pulls him back up and gets him in position for a piledriver on the barb-wire chair. But Hangman reverses the position and hits Swerve with the piledriver on the chair instead. However, the impact on the chair also hurts Page's knees.
Both men then lay on their backs at right angles to each other. When their hands almost touch it is one of the most powerful images from the match, with the two men in repose looking suddenly, momentarily, like exhausted lovers rather than attempted mutual murderers, and the weapon like a pillow under a resting Swerve's head.
Swerve is almost declared a knockout, still struggling at 9—Nana saves him with an assist by pulling him closer to the ropes, so Swerve can use them to pull himself up. After over 17 minutes of combat, and ALL of the stunning brutality we've seen, this is the first near-KO of the match.
Hangman stalks over, grabs up the chair, and smacks Swerve flat on the back with it. Hangman sets the chair on the mat in a landing zone, and muscles Swerve up to sit on the turnbuckle, attempting to set him up for his signature move, the Deadeye, (basically an inverted piledriver.) They go back and forth with reversals and escapes, but in the end it's Swerve who hits Page with a power bomb onto the barbed-wire chair. Swerve then climbs to the turnbuckle himself and hits the Swerve Stomp, (normally a consistent finishing move,) for good measure, smashing his feet into his adversary's torso with Page's back still against the barbed chair. Deep into Turner's knockout count, Hangman gets to his feet for just a moment—long enough to break the count —but then slips on blood and falls back to the mat.
Swerve slides out of the ring to retrieve more plunder from underneath, and returns with a black velvet bag…. This creates an air of dread among both the audience and commentary, as a bag like that is usually full of thumbtacks to be strewn on the ring for smashing your opponent backfirst onto, a painful and alarming tactic. Page is on all fours trying to get back to his feet, and Swerve instead pours the contents of the bag directly onto his back. And— in the spirit of raising the stakes even higher than usual for a no-disqualification fight— rather than thumbtacks, we discover that the bag had been filled with shattered glass! Then Swerve climbs the turnbuckle and does a forward somersault dive, his torso landing stomach-side first onto Page's back, sacrificing his own body to hurt his enemy.
Swerve then lifts Page into a move that drives him to the mat onto the back of his neck, then backs off to let the ref count. This may be the closest count yet, as Page pops to his feet just before the ten. The enemies glare at each other with hate in their eyes, and then Swerve rushes at Page and flips both of them over the top rope to the outside. Swerve then grabs more plunder and Nana retrieves a weird object from under the ring. Swerve goes back in and uses these objects together to assemble a bizarre contraption: a plank of plywood with numerous coils of barbed wire attached bridging two set-up steel chairs facing each other, all angled at a tangent to one turnbuckle. He climbs the turnbuckle and pulls Hangman up with him with intent, but Page fights back. Hangman comes out ahead in the struggle and ends up hitting the fallaway slam from standing on the very top of the buckle all the way down through the plywood and to the mat below.
He toe-kicks Swerve's face and then hits two more moves that smash his skull into the remains of barbed plywood now laying on the mat.
Page then clears away some of the furniture that's been accumulating in the ring to make a clear path for his next move. This includes kicking the pieces of plywood into a corner, revealing that it had been elaborately painted on the opposite side that we never really got to see before it was smashed to pieces. A shard that ends up propped up in the corner has a skull airbrushed on it—so now we have a death's-head looking on at the proceedings, evidently grinning with approval. Hangman then picks up a coil of barb wire that came loose from the plywood and wraps it around Swerve's head and neck.
He gets into position on the ring apron and knocks Swerve to the mat with the Buckshot lariat— meaning that his arm smashes the barbs into Swerve's neck from one direction, and then the mat does the same from the other. Page lets the referee count—he's finally ready to be done. It's looking like Swerve may finally be down for the count, but then Nana pulls him by the leg out of the ring causing him to land feet-first on the floor—barely conscious, but technically standing. Hangman looks absolutely incensed at this chicanery!
While Swerve staggers around outside, a last-resort backup plan goes into action: his muscle-headed goon Brian Cage sprints to the ring and attacks Page from behind to give his boss a respite.
A reading of Brian Cage's crimes against Adam Page, chronologically:
a clubbing blow to the back of the neck
a power bomb to the mat
a power bomb to the turnbuckle
& an F10 (a move that tosses Page front-first flat to the mat)
Brian then pulls a folding table from under the ring and sets it up at the ring's edge. He pulls Page up for another power bomb, intending presumably to toss him out of the ring and through the table. But Adam had grabbed a length of barbed wire while Brian had been fiddling with the table, and he uses it to rake Brian's face to get free. He then wraps the strand around Brian's face and neck. Page rears back and hits Brian with two "rolling elbows" (spinning discus elbow strikes) and then a big lariat, prompting Brian to roll out of the ring and disappear forever… (ok, for the night, anyway.)
In one final act of desperation, non-combatant Nana enters the battlefield and tries hitting Page with a chair. Hangman is nonplussed and Nana realizes his major error with a look of horror, and turns to flee. But Page catches him by the belt and joins him on the edge of the ring outside the ropes. Nana tries one last ploy: a charm offensive, doing the Nana dance for Hangman in hope of forgiveness. Unimpressed, Hangman picks him up and drapes him over his back to hit the Deadeye from the ring apron, down through the table, and all the way to the floor.
Nana's sacrifice was not in vain though, having given Swerve time to recover and return for the kill shot, sprinting up behind Page and smashing Chekhov's Cinderblock to dust on Hangman's back. Would that FINALLY be enough to keep him down for the ref's count of ten? We'll never know, because Strickland isn't willing to wait, making Hangman into the Hanged Man by looping a chain around his neck and then stringing it to use the turnbuckle as a pulley to hang Hangman by the neck until… he passes out. It should be noted that Hangman is technically still on his feet, but the referee calls for the bell anyhow, revealing the secret third way to win a Texas Death match: referee stoppage, aka "somebody was gonna die otherwise."
The image of bloodsoaked Swerve hanging the Hangman limply by his neck is one of the most iconic images of a match FILLED with iconic images. And so the brutal horror of this all-out war between two human beings finally reaches a cessation of hostilities, but sadly not a true peace. This would only be the beginning of the spiral into madness, especially for Adam Page...
Monster X Monster
20 years ago, Freddy vs Jason started a brief craze for Monster X Monster flicks, such as Alien vs Predator. They weren't the first of the sort— one of the most recent, Godzilla vs Kong, is a remake of sorts of (I believe) the very first: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962).
In many ways, Hangman X Swerve in Texas Death feels like one of these Monster X Monster movies. Bloody, yet somehow bloodless: you can cheer for whichever monster is your favorite without guilt, because there are only monsters here—innocents are far from the scene.
But… which monsters are Hangman X Swerve? Of course, the obvious answer is Vampire X Zombie—Hangman for the obvious, blood-slurping reasons. And Swerve, when he kept advancing on Page completely indifferent to grave harm, was very zombie-esque. Commentator Nigel McGuiness even made the insightful call that Swerve was "like a zombie."
However, with their shambolic shambling, the Romero-style movie zombies are only scary en masse.
Of movie monsters, Swerve is more like the singular urban-legend type monsters of the 1980s slashers, especially the implacable Michael Myers of the Halloween franchise. But, while both seem unstoppable and indifferent to pain, the big difference is Swerve's demented grin compared with Myers's creepily affectless rubber Kirk mask.
In fact, McGuiness may have gotten accidentally closer than he realized—but not so much the zombie of the movies, but the zombi of vodou. There are two aspects that bring vodou folklore specifically to my mind….
Firstly, the night that Strickland first entered Page's life and asserted his intent to take the Hangman's position for himself, he made the claim that he had spent nearly two weeks in a coffin and he had achieved clarity there.
This is a reference to the loss he incurred in his match at AEW's biggest show ever, All In at Wimbledon stadium. In front of over 70,000 fans, his longtime rival—the morbid daredevil Darby Allin—put an exclamation point on their feud by shutting Swerve into a coffin by crashing down on it backfirst.
If we take Swerve at his word, he spent 10 nights in that coffin. Trapped? Buried alive? Remaining there by choice as some kind of penance? He doesn't specify….
If this process had made him a zombi exactly like the ones in the vodou tradition, he would be soulless, (arguable,) indifferent to pain, (he gets there,) but also a slave to the bokor (necromancer) who had zombified him—an automaton with no free will whatsoever. [6] That last one is a sticking point—although there's an obvious suspect for the bokor in Nana—because, whether monster or man, I can't think of any being more clearly self-willed than Swerve Strickland.
BUT, what if, instead of a traditional vodou zombi, we posit some sort of... higher undead? For example, in the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop game, a zombie is a reanimated corpse that is basically a robot for the necromancer who raised it, much like the vodou version, whereas a lich is what you get when an extremely powerful necromancer makes an undead of themself. [7] What if Swerve is a vodou take on the lich?—where Swerve is both bokor AND zombi, and the symbolic death of being put in a coffin by an enemy in front of a huge cheering throng, the sensory deprivation and fasting of ten nights in the coffin, and finally the humbling and suffering of being bound and tortured by another enemy, were all steps in the recipe to become this super-zombi… AND: perhaps this process would also make Swerve into some sort of avatar to one of the Lwa? (The Lwa are the spirits/gods in vodou.)
That last speculation is based on my second reason for a vodou interpretation of what sort of monster Swerve represents: that sublime moment when Swerve realizes that he is beyond pain, and staples himself in the chest several times to prove it to himself and to the world, with a delighted and manic grin, and with a crimson mask of his own gushing blood obscuring his face… in that moment, he strikes me as the absolute avatar on Earth of the trickster Lwa of death, Baron Samedi.
In the vodou tradition, Baron Samedi is a trickster demigod: cruel and capricious, like death… crass and unpleasant, to represent the unwelcomeness of death… but also vigorous and sensual, to represent appreciating life while it lasts. The enigmatic being is a bringer of death, but also a protector of the spirits of the dead, and of graves from desecration. [8]
Pop-culture incarnations of Baron Samedi have appeared as villains in such variegated films as the 70s Bond flick Live and Let Die, the Blaxploitation horror movie Sugar Hill, and the last traditional-animation Disney movie: the Princess and the Frog. [9]
Another especially relevant takeoff of Baron Samedi in popular culture: WWF wrestler "Papa Shango"! In fact, in a weird way, this entire bloody match could be seen as a modern spin on cheesy 1990s WWF horror gimmicks: "Voodoo Witch Doctor" Papa Shango X "the Vampire Warrior" Gangrel. After all, Hangman spraying the blood into the air was a direct reference / easter egg to Gangrel's gimmick.
(The wrestler, Charles Wright, who had portrayed Papa Shango actually fought Gangrel several times in 1999 & 2000. But by then he had given up "voodoo" for (big sigh, it was a different time, I guess...) a popular "pimp" gimmick.) [10]
But, much like Swerve isn't exactly a traditional zombie, Hangman isn't exactly a traditional vampire. Yes, he drank Swerve's blood, but … (we FINALLY return to the question!) …why? A vampire would drink because human blood is their sustenance, or perhaps to make another vampire. But that doesn't seem to be what was going on with Hangman...
What if Hangman drank Swerve's blood to… TAKE something from him? …to replace something he had lost, in himself? Remember in Act I, Page told us the story of the personal raincloud that rained only on him, that had washed something out of him? And my theory was that that "something" was the vitality, passion, and self-possession contained in his lifeblood. What if the Hangman wanted to replace what he had lost and reinvigorate this pale and washed-out version of himself with the lifeblood of someone…. villainous, true… but: undeniably vigorous and assured?
Some Native American cultures, such as the Iroquois tribes of what is now the Northeastern US and Quebec, are reputed to have consumed the flesh of fallen enemies in order to absorb their powers. [11] But if we posit that the Hangman is a shamanistic blood-drinker, why then did his ritual seemingly totally backfire? After all, it was Swerve who was notably reinvigorated soon after Hangman drank his blood, not vice versa,
But Hangman wasn't the only one doing strange things that may potentially be explained as shamanistic ritual: Swerve's 10 days of fasting and sensory deprivation are similar to the "Vision Quest" traditions of many North American tribes, while the extremes of pain and piercing of the flesh just prior to entering an ecstatic state of higher consciousness seems specifically like the Sun Dance of the Plains tribes. [12]
So… what if Hangman got the chocolate of his shamanistic ritual into the peanut butter of Swerve's shamanistic ritual? I hate to give the Queen of TERFs even indirect mention, but this sounds like nothing so much as the link between a certain boy wizard and his Big Bad caused by clashing spells.
And what if this link doesn't just apply to "power" or vitality, but also to personality traits? This might be extremely suggestive of some of the reasons for the changes we would begin to see in both men over the coming weeks, when Hangman would descend into bitterness and acrimony, while Swerve would begin showing unaccustomed flashes of nobility…
(And if we're talking about a link between the two men created by shamanistic ritual, let's not forget that in addition to the blood-drinking, Page ALSO attached to Swerve (via piercing the flesh!) an item of intense sentimental significance to himself and to his family—a product of his son's creative impulse. Which item then became imbued with Swerve's blood! That's gotta be… something, right?)
So, am I seriously claiming that Swerve is a shamanistic necromancer and Hangman a shamanistic vampire, and the clash of their respective rituals to gain power would do a Freaky Friday on them? I know it sounds wacky, but yes! Admittedly, all of that is deeply speculative. But what is plain fact is that the two men are now blood brothers. And that in the coming weeks, both would speak of the bond between them in quasi-mystical tones.
(The shamanistic ritual stuff isn't even the wackiest part—Strickland and Page's new blood siblinghood has some even MORE disturbing implications to explore... But considering how long this piece is already, I shall hold off on breaking all of that down for Act III when the two men each talk about this strange new connection between them…)
Annnnnd…. That was the end: "tune in next time!" It wasn't until I had finished my first draft and was working on captions for the images, that I started to realize that there is more to this match than I had given it credit for: more than pushing the envelope of the state of the art of simulated brutality. More to it than testing the crowd's seemingly unquenchable thirst for blood. The emotions brought up by the song lyrics that each scene made me think of helped me to see the raw emotion lurking underneath the carnage.
And I realized that the symbolic framework of "using shamanistic ritual to make a monster of oneself"—which I had only hypothesized because it seemed to fit—actually underpins the beating heart of theme and story that make this match and this feud so powerful to so many. And that theme is toxic masculinity: men making monsters of themselves for what they believe are good reasons—because they believe that they must be monsters to survive and thrive in this world.
Specifically, Swerve believes he must be the monster he's made of himself to overcome the barriers of race and achieve success and renown. While Hangman gradually becomes more and more a monster in order to protect who and what he cares about: at first his work-home of AEW, and his idea of what AEW should be and mean, and then later his literal home—his wife and kids. Those both seem like worthy goals—after all, somebody has to be the first Black AEW Champion in order for others to follow. And anybody might be tempted to take drastic steps to protect their home and family. But what makes men create monsters of themselves is pursuing those goals individualistically—martyring themselves by taking on that weight of the world alone, rather than approaching problems by building community.
In my assessment. it is this thematic power that raises the Texas Death match—and the Hangman X Swerve feud as a whole—from simply being a depressing piece of art, to being a proper, capital-T Tragedy. As you'd expect in a Tragedy, the primary character has a fatal flaw and all of their plans and intentions become tangled in opposing plans... all to inexorably lead to their downfall. But which is that primary character: Hangman?... Or Swerve? Obviously, a case could be made that if the story is a Tragedy, then the answer must be Hangman—since he is the one who will suffer a downfall, while Swerve ascends. But the story isn't over, and my view is that it's actually a mirror-Tragedy: with two equal and opposite protagonists who lead to one another's mutual destruction... But that remains to be seen!
Footnote:
* The details of the two incredibly influential consequences of Dizzy Davis's innovation prior to the Texas Death Match are completely irrelevant to this story, but WAY too fascinating not to detail, thus this footnote:
In 1942, the oldest promotion still in operation today—then known as EMLL—brought the Texan Davis to their home base of Mexico City to work some matches playing an outrageous new character: "Gardenia" Davis, who would throw his namesake flowers to the audience, and generate interest by primping and preening in a manner that outraged the fans in the arena. He had a fussy valet who would carefully style his hair and spray him with perfume in his corner of the ring. This gimmick was so successful at getting fans riled up to pay to see the unmanly man beat up, it spawned a subgenre of effeminate wrestlers still popular in Mexico today: the exoticos. [13]
But when wrestling back in the US, he would stick with his original gimmick: Dizzy Davis, the flashy but basically-masculine tough guy he was already well known as in his home state of Texas. But in 1946, he was working with a performer named George Wagner in Dallas and his friend was having trouble getting a reaction from the audience, so Davis suggested that he try the gimmick that had gotten such a passionate reaction for himself in Mexico.
Wagner would exchange the gardenias for orchids, (and so would be nicknamed "the Human Orchid,") but otherwise lifted the gimmick whole. Audiences in Dallas, and later all over the US, came to love to hate "Gorgeous" George so much that many largely credit him with the post-war pro-wrestling boom. The Gorgeous one's astounding facility with riling up or confounding an audience has been credited as an inspiration and model by both Muhammad Ali and Bob Dylan. [13]
And, as incredible as it sounds, it all started with a hand-me-down gimmick from a now-forgotten wrestler who amazingly also went on to invent the Texas Death Match.
References:
myhighplains.com, "Dory Funk Sr. & 'Iron' Mike DiBiase and the match that lasted over three hours" by Jack Kessler [this is the original source and only claims that this was a legendary long & brutal match... it's an article in Texas Monthly quoting this source that adds the misinfo that Dory Sr invented the match: "The Rise and Fall and Resurgence of Pro Wrestling’s 'Texas Death Match'" by Nadine Smith]
CAGEMATCH Adv. Search "Texas Death"
CAGEMATCH Dizzy Davis, Matches
The Internet Wrestlling Database, Win Types, "Jon Moxley", "Steve Austin", "Hulk Hogan", "John Cena"
The Internet Wrestlling Database, "Jon Moxley, Profile & Match Listing"
Nerdist, "A Brief history of Liches, everyone's favorite undead wizards" by Josh Hrala
Pagans & Witches, "The Difference Between Vodou Loa’s Papa Legba & Baron Samedi" by demy
TV Tropes, "Borrowin' Samedi"
CAGEMATCH, "Godfather, Matches X Gangrel"
Epoch Magazine, "The Bread of Life" by Abby Riehl
Cuyumungue Institute, "The Role of Altered States of Consciousness in Native American Healing" by Timothy C. Thomason
Patrick W. Reed, "Who Made George Gorgeous? - The Troubling True Crime Stories of Lord Patrick Lansdowne and Gardenia Davis"
I expect that Act III of the Blood Feud series will cover the remaining story up to Hangman's kayfabe "suspension"—from the fallout of Texas Death to the triple-threat World Championship match. I don't imagine that will be NEARLY as massive an undertaking as Act II has been or take three weeks to complete, but I never expected to have THIS much to say about just under 30 minutes of action, either. So I have learned better than to make promises: Act IV will be forthcoming at some point hopefully soon, hopefully while Hangman X Swerve still has some current relevance. (Though they look to be just getting started!)
I hope you all stick with me and join me again then for more blood and madness!
It is done!!
Go to Act III
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