During an interview with Simon Miller, Swerve Strickland spoke on violent matches and said that there needs to be justification for doing those in pro wrestling. Strickland discussed his past feud with Hangman Adam Page and how the story they told justified the violence.
“I would say the means and the hatred between two characters for the violence to go that far has to be justified. I felt like me and Hangman was very justified, seeing as we pushed boundaries with each other as men, not just characters. I went into his home, he burnt down my house. That kind of warrants being dropped on a cinder block, that warrants the syringe and all the violence. That’s the connection we’ve had and, once again, all the equity we put in that year, to get that far, to push things that far. I feel like it has to justify the means, the motive, why I’m doing this. Like call backs to certain things. The staple gun was like stapling the picture of his kid’s painting that I ripped off his refrigerator when I went to his home. It was a call back to those things. Then I stapled my family picture that was in the photos that I had for the house back on his face, so it was call backs, reasoning, and stuff like that. It’s all about having a justification for the violence between two characters and not just doing it for the sake of doing it, to try to top it.”
Quote Source: Fightful