Swerve Strickland and "Hangman' Adam Page endured a grueling Texas Death Match at AEW Full Gear, but one moment in particular caused quite a stir amongst wrestling fans.

Amidst their hellacious battle, Swerve Strickland began bleeding from his head. Later in the bout, Page refueled himself with a taste of Strickland's blood, then proceeded to spit it into the air. During an appearance on TMZ Sports, Strickland addressed the divisive reception surrounding this blood-drinking spot.

“I mean, that’s pretty much why we’re here, having this conversation in the first place. If you’re gonna go all out in a match like that, you have to release all the chains, all the handcuffs, understand that there’s going to be criticism because we’re gonna shake the foundation a little bit," Strickland said. "Shoutout to a lot of the forums that are picking up, talking about it, discussing it. We appreciate you, I love you, thank you, for watching, and adding so much noise to the discussion about the match."

"But in 2023, it’s become really difficult to really catch the attention across all these platforms. People are coming up with five-star matches every pay-per-view. Every pay-per-view, I think there’s a five-star match, guaranteed. This match is put in there to have that. I’m not even a big fan of five stars. I’m just more about the story, and if there’s something memorable about it. If it happens to be five stars, some people perceive it as that, cool. I’m all about the business and television and theater. I feel like that was one of those moments it was like, that was theater. That was cinematic, like, ‘Oh my god. You have to go out of your way to see this because I can’t even believe it.'"

Despite the spot's mixed reactions, Strickland points out that it embodied what All Elite Wrestling is all about -- pushing the boundaries of professional wrestling.

"'Whoever has anything to complain about it, feel free. Complain, I implore you. It’s not a good thing to do. I don’t implore anybody to do anything like that. But the fact that it was done, it makes people [go], ‘I don’t believe you. I gotta go see this for myself.’ That’s what that was. We pushed boundaries," Strickland said. "That’s what AEW was built on. Pushing boundaries, doing things that other places just couldn’t do, or are not able to do. You’re not able to see that anywhere else. There’s been another product that’s been doing it for so long. They’re excellent at what they do. We gotta find what we’re excellent at what we do. That was the pinnacle of what AEW was like. That’s what we do. We are excellent at what we do."

Following his Texas Death Match against Page, Strickland turned his attention to the AEW Continental Classic, where he defeated Jay Lethal in the first round of the round-robin tournament.