Strickland’s opportunity at becoming World Champion again was taken away by The Young Bucks.
Headlining AEW’s second Dynasty pay-per-view was Swerve Strickland challenging Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship. It was at the first Dynasty pay-per-view in 2024 that Strickland defeated Samoa Joe to win the World Title.
As the Moxley-Strickland match was ongoing, Marina Shafir hit Prince Nana with the briefcase that contains the championship. Strickland got her attention and tossed her into Moxley’s cutter that he was attempting to hit on his opponent. Strickland did the Paradigm Shift onto Moxley but it only garnered him a two count.
There was another point in the match when Strickland performed his Swerve Stomp off a ladder onto Moxley and they went through an announce table. As the bout went on, Shafir slid a chair to Moxley but he accidentally threw it at referee Paul Turner while aiming for Strickland.
While Turner was down, Hangman Adam Page made his way to ringside and he was lining up Strickland for a Buckshot Lariat, but it appeared as if Page shifted his focus to Moxley. The Death Riders (Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta & PAC) came out to stop Page, but he fought them off and hit Moxley with a Deadeye.
Making their way into the fold were The Opps (Samoa Joe, HOOK & Katsuyori Shibata) and they fought off the Death Riders.
Strickland went to hit the Swerve Stomp onto Moxley, but his knee was giving him trouble so he struggled to scoot over and make a pin. The lights in the venue went out and when they came back on, The Young Bucks (Matthew Jackson & Nicholas Jackson) had Strickland set up for a BTE Trigger. They connected with the double knee strike and Moxley capitalized to continue his reign as AEW World Champion.
The Young Bucks were last seen on AEW programming when they jetted out of a venue to avoid confrontation with the Death Riders. The duo wrestled two dates for New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 2025.
