On November 2nd, a few short weeks before his match against “Hangman” Adam Page at AEW Full Gear, Swerve Strickland posted on social media that “this industry needs a ‘Mick Foley.‘”

Now granted, technically, the industry already has a Mick Foley in Mick Foley, the 58-year-old WWE Hall of Famer who is not only alive but still a very active member of the community due to his popular podcast, his appearances at conventions, and his occasional cameos on WWE programming, but in terms of active wrestlers, there really isn't another performer who checks that box at the moment and has embraced the “Hardcore” moniker as part of a mainstream promotion.

Or is there? Stopping by TMZ to talk with Dean Muhtadi, aka WWE's Mojo Rawley, about all things AEW, Swerve let it be known that the “Hangman” may have established himself as the natural successor to Catus Jack's crown.

“The Death Match, I don't look like someone that's a Deathmatch wrestler or a fan of it, or even partakes in it, but I've done my share,” Swerve Strickland told TMZ via Fightful. “I actually grew up being a fan of hardcore stuff. Shoutout Mick Foley. I said on Twitter a couple years ago, I'm like, man, this generation doesn't have a Mick Foley. Mick Foley was that guy in that Attitude Era, doing the right of passage to a lot of stars. He did with it with the Triple Hs, he did it with the Undertakers, he did it with the Austins, he's done it with the Rocks. Then, the next generation, the Adam Copelands, the Randy Ortons, Brock. You name them, he gave him that right of passage, and I feel like we don't have that anymore. Truth be told, when I made that tweet, I was like, man, who is that guy now? It might be ‘Hangman' Page. It might be.”

With Texas Death matches on his resume against Strickland, Adam Cole, Jon Moxley, and Lancer Archer, securing a 3-1 record for his efforts, Page really is making a very good case for the moniker of the Lone Star State's premium “Death Dealer,” which is really saying something for someone from Aaron's Creek, Virginia. As AEW prepares to reload in this new CM Punk in WWE landscape, embracing that aspect of Page's character could be a serious building block for Tony Khan to build around, especially if it allows Strickland to expand out to even greener pastures.

Swerve Strickland reveals the inspiration behind his heelish persona.

Elsewhere in his wrestling media tour, this time on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Swerve Strickland was asked about his new heelish persona and what inspired his unique sense of style and brutality.

While Strickland initially took inspiration from Wesley Snipes' character in Demolition Man, he has since expanded things out to a more violent, villainous design all his own.

“I'm a Wesley Snipes fan. When I was in NXT and really dipping into coloring my hair, the grill came in, it was really from watching Demolition Man and the Simon Phoenix character. This jubilant character, but this dude is like a psychopath. Vicious. Brutal. Destroying a peaceful society,” Strickland said via SEScoops.

“He stands out right away, with blonde hair and stuff like that. And I'm like ‘Oh this is a villain that is so entertaining.' He's doing bad things but I want to see him… Let's get back to him. He's in the sewer? What's he doing down there? And then they go away and ‘Okay, what's he doing?' You can't wait to see the next thing that the bad guy does.”

Strickland then went on to shout out the Undertaker, who was a wrestling persona he took inspiration from, as well. After watching him grow over the years, he, too, wondered how to create a character that could transcend sports entertainment to really make fans feel something.

“The Undertaker was the undead personified on screen but to a large sample of the audience as we got older… in the mid-90s it was cutting edge and in the 2000s he went ‘American Bada**' and back to the ‘Deadman' later on. But we knew it was still the show. That was the maturity of media in wrestling in the fans. The fans grew up. We realized we were going to a show and seeing a show,” Strickland noted.

“But how do I make the show reach out to people internally? Oh, talking to a child in a crib with a father not home. Just the idea of that, as a father, the idea of that is chilling. I'm helpless, I can't do anything. And that's real fear to me. And that's how you revolutionize heel and villain and bad, evil, because I'm a real person who can do these real things.”

In professional wrestling, roughly 50 percent of performers are babyfaces, and 50 percent are heels. If Strickland wants to go all in on being a super duper heel, not by wearing black and having a satanic vibe a la the House of Black but by literally threatening babies, well, that's certainly a way to garner reactions. Fortunately, Strickland has the game to back it up, which is why many fans are labeling him the next big thing in AEW.