Swerve Strickland On Why He Had Surgery After AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025

Swerve Strickland underwent surgery on a torn meniscus he’d been dealing with for years after AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025, a decision he recently reflected on. Strickland underwent the surgery after last year’s Forbidden Door. He had been dealing with the injury since 2019.

Strickland, who is set to face Will Ospreay in the finals of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament at this year’s Forbidden Door on Sunday, spoke with Forbes for a new interview and discussed the surgery. You can see highlights below:

On Deciding To Have the Surgery:

“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.”

On Being In a Good Spot to Get It Fixed:

“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.”

On Trying to take Care Of Himself:

“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.”

On If the Surgery Has Changed His In-Ring Style:

“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.”