Swerve Strickland Says He Suffered Ruptured Eardrum Injury at AEW Revolution 2025

Swerve Strickland revealed at the AEW Revolution post-show media scrum on Sunday evening that he suffered a ruptured left eardrum during his match with Ricochet (h/t Subhojeet Mukherjee of Ringside News).

"Pardon me everybody, I have a ruptured eardrum right now (gesturing to his left ear), so I can only hear out of this ear (motioning to his right)," Strickland said (52:29 in the video). "So...definitely be loud with your questions, thank you!"

It's unclear how the injury occurred during the 18-minute match, which ended with Strickland defeating Ricochet in Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena to become the No. 1 contender to the AEW World Championship.

Later in the evening, Jon Moxley defended the AEW World Championship belt by defeating Cope and Christian Cage in a three-way title match.

Strickland is now next on the title defense list. He's looking for his second AEW World Championship reign after previously holding the belt for 126 days, from April 21 to August 25, 2024. Strickland defeated Samoa Joe for the title at Dynasty before losing it to Bryan Danielson at All In in a Title vs. Career match.