As we come back around to the show that saw Swerve Strickland's AEW world title reign begin, it's only fitting that we also re-examine how it ended. Strickland's reign lasted 126 days in total, beginning at the first AEW Dynasty in April 2024 and ending at AEW All In in August, when Bryan Danielson dethroned him in the main event of AEW's second consecutive Wembley Stadium show. Though the decision can't truly be called controversial there was far too much love for the renowned Danielson as he concluded his full-time wrestling career for anything resembling actual unrest there were some who found it questionable from a practical standpoint, considering Danielson was reportedly no longer under contract to AEW and had already announced he was suffering from a legitimate neck injury that he believed would require surgery. In the end, Danielson's (presumed) last world title reign lasted 48 days, coming to a close when Jon Moxley asphyxiated his former BCC stablemate at WrestleDream. AEW fans felt Moxley's betrayal keenly at the time, but the subsequent Death Riders angle didn't deliver on its initial promise and was a big part of a perceived dip in creative quality for AEW as 2024 transitioned into 2025. Now Dynasty is here again, AEW creative is on the rebound, and Strickland has the chance to not only deliver the fans from Moxley's tepid reign, but to right the wrongs of All In by reclaiming the championship some believe he never should have lost.
With Strickland standing in direct opposition to the Death Riders storyline catalyzed by his loss to Danielson, and in celebration of Dynasty reaching its one-year anniversary, Wrestling Inc. believes it's the perfect time to ask: What if Swerve Strickland had beaten Bryan Danielson at AEW All In 2024?
Let's start by talking about the AEW World Championship, which has been locked away in a briefcase for nearly half a year as an indirect result of Danielson's All In victory. If Swerve retained instead, what would the last seven months or so have looked like in terms of the world title?
Strickland followed up his loss to Danielson with another loss this one to his blood rival, "Hangman" Adam Page, at All Out two weeks later in a Lights Out Steel Cage match. This match was actually set up after Strickland lost the title, so there's not necessarily any reason it would have happened if Swerve had retained. Page was broadly the most popular non-Danielson choice to face Strickland at All In, and like Danielson, he would have been expected to win; his intense rivalry with Swerve, during which both men had produced some of their best work inside and outside the ring, made the match worthy of the All In main event, and the fact that Strickland was 2-0 against Page so far made Page the likely victor of a third battle. In reality, concluding the Strickland vs. Page trilogy in a non-title match with a two-week build felt like an apologetic half-measure, and Page hasn't really benefitted from the win. In a scenario where Swerve defeats Danielson, however despite the obvious increase in prestige Swerve would have earned from the win Page would be the likely choice to dethrone him, though it probably wouldn't have been at All Out. It's easy to imagine Strickland's title reign lasting until WrestleDream and ending at the hands of the Hangman, meaning Seattle would still get the unique pleasure of watching one of their hometown heroes lose his world title to a man they had once loved as a championship babyface.
And after that? It seems likely that Moxley never turns heel, potentially allowing Page to quickly cement his second reign with a win over another old rival. As Moxley's real-life reign has proved, there would have been plenty of babyfaces to line up for a heel champion Page who, as it happens, would likely have still been champion when his old friend and nemesis Kenny Omega was ready to return to AEW. The promotion may have course-corrected lately, but after his match with Gabe Kidd at Wrestle Dynasty, there were a lot of AEW fans calling for Omega to take Moxley's title, pivoting the promotion away from the Death Riders and back toward the glory days of 2021. If Swerve defeating Danielson would have let to not just a second, career-affirming Hangman Page title reign, but an alignment-flipped continuation of his years-long storyline with Omega, it could single-handedly have fulfilled those fans' dreams.
Obviously if you're an AEW fan who loves the Death Riders storyline, you would lose that in this scenario, and we're sorry for that. We would also be sorry for Danielson, who would lose an amazing moment in his career that he has effusively praised. That said, we're not so sure it couldn't still have been an amazing moment in Danielson's career, not to mention an amazing match in general, if it ended with a Danielson loss. The true legends have always understood that it doesn't matter who wins a match, but why; we submit that Danielson is too great a wrestler to have such a moment taken from him by something as entirely fictional as a choreographed defeat.
It's important to remember that a Danielson loss at All In would likely not have meant the end of his in-ring career it was only after beating Strickland that Danielson announced he would retire upon losing the belt. With his reign comprising just three defenses, it's hard to see a downside in rewriting history in terms of title matches lost; Danielson's match with Jack Perry didn't do much for anyone, the third singles match between Danielson and Okada would have lost nothing from being non-title like the first two; and Jon Moxley and his stablemates have only seen their stocks drop since claiming the world championship. The promotion as a whole feels healthier in a universe without Danielson's title reign, as the overall malaise surrounding AEW until very recently can attest and which even now reveals itself in the form of AEW fans praying for Strickland to reclaim the gold.
In the end, the only thing truly valuable that would have been lost if Bryan Danielson had put over Swerve Strickland is the moment, in the minds and hearts of Bryan Danielson fans, that Bryan Danielson defeated Swerve Strickland. It's a cost that can't be brushed under the rug or ignored Danielson winning the world title one last time made a lot of people really happy, to an extent that professional wrestling is only rarely able to achieve. Danielson's victory, and the celebration in the ring that happened in its aftermath, was undeniably beautiful. We leave it to the reader to decide whether that moment of beauty was worth the tumultuous months that followed.
