Just hours before his AEW Unified Championship defense at the Forbidden Door pay-per-view, a previouslyreport indicates that Swerve Strickland may require surgery on his knee following the event. A procedure would sideline the top star for several months.
AEW recently worked Strickland’s legitimate knee injury into a storyline on the August 13 episode of Dynamite. Behind the scenes, the situation is a real one, as a report from Fightful Select has provided more details on the matter.
Strickland has reportedly been working with a torn meniscus, an injury he has been dealing with since his time at the WWE Performance Center in 2019. While he rested the injury at the time, it never fully healed.
AEW has been utilizing the medical team of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars to help Strickland recover and avoid surgery. However, with the injury not improving, a new Fightful Select reports that the internal conversations within AEW have now shifted to planning to be without him for months following the pay-per-view should he get the surgery.
If surgery is required, it could force Strickland to vacate the AEW Unified Championship and would cause a reshuffling of the company’s main event plans for the remainder of the year.