Hi folks! Today, we are talking about the AEW World Champion “Hangman” Adam Page. Has his title reign been lackluster since defeating Kenny Omega? This piece takes a detailed look at his form and whether we should be critical of The Cowboy’s booking. Hangman Page is AEW’s fourth World Champion and will face CM Punk at the third Double or Nothing PPV. First, I feel like we should look at Hangman Page’s match history since winning the title at Full Gear in November.
Since then, he has wrestled 10 matches, which is an average of roughly 0.6 a month. That isn’t much, and we’ll get in to the possible reasons later. Here’s a list of Hangman Page’s ten matches as AEW World Champion. Title matches are bolded, and italics highlight non-TV matches:
- vs. Bryan Danielson for the World Championship – Time Limit Draw on Dynamite ‘Winter Is Coming’ (12/15/21)
- vs. Bryan Danielson for the World Championship – Win on Dynamite (1/5/22)
- w/ #10 & 5 of The Dark Order vs. Matt Hardy, Isiah Kassidy & Serpentico – Win on Dark (1/8/22)
- vs. Lance Archer in a Texas Deathmatch for the World Championship – Win on Dynamite (2/9/22)
- w/ Alex Reynolds & John Silver vs. Adam Cole, Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly – Loss on Dynamite (3/2/22)
- vs. Adam Cole for the World Championship – Win at Revolution (3/6/22)
- vs. Dante Martin for the World Championship – Win on Dynamite (3/9/22)
- w/ Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus vs. Adam Cole, Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly – Loss on Dynamite (3/16/22)
- vs. Adam Cole in a Texas Deathmatch for the World Championship – Win on Rampage (4/15/22)
- vs. Konosuke Takeshita – Win on Dynamite (5/18/22)
What Has He Done?
The title victory was well-received, because Hangman Page and Kenny Omega’s story had been told over the long term. No, it wasn’t winning any awards, but AEW absolutely nailed the job of building Page to the moment. The fans responded in kind, because “Cowboy S***” had gotten over, as had Kenny Omega’s dominant heel run. They needed Page to overcome Omega, and it was uplifting when he did, because a new babyface star had been born.
But what happened after that? Well, not much. According to his Wikipedia, he has done the following since winning the title:
“Page made his first defense of the championship against Bryan Danielson at the Winter Is Coming event on December 15, which ended in a 60-minute time limit draw; Page retained the championship, and received his second consecutive 5-star match from Meltzer. The two met in a rematch on the January 5, 2022 episode of Dynamite, which Page won.
On the February 9 episode of Dynamite, Page successfully defended his title against Lance Archer in a Texas Deathmatch, and was afterwards confronted by Adam Cole, who indicated his intentions to challenge for the championship. On March 6, 2022, Page would defeat Cole at Revolution, despite interference from reDRagon.
Hangman would defeat Cole once again in a Texas Deathmatch during an episode of Rampage. Shortly before the April 27th episode of Dynamite, Page tested positive for COVID-19, and was unable to confront CM Punk, who was announced as his opponent for Double or Nothing.”
Notice how there’s not much to it? That’s because Hangman Page has done nothing overly memorable. If you don’t watch Dark, you’d have seen a max of 9 matches. What about Rampage? Reduce to 8 if you missed that. He was most active in January and March, but rarely worked the other months. Why is that? I don’t like to speculate, but I can think of three reasons off the top of my head.
Where Is He?
#1. Quality time with the family. — AEW gave Page time off in August last year, after his wife gave birth to their baby boy. There’s a good chance that Tony Khan respects Page’s wishes to spend extra time at home. In another company, he might not get this grace, especially as the World Champion, but AEW management understands and cares that he gets this. After all, it’s a special time, and I bet he wouldn’t want to be injured, exhausted, or both while helping his wife. Page is doing just enough as World Champion, but for some fans, that may be too little.
#2. Social Anxiety. — In December, one month after winning the title, Page revealed he had a social anxiety disorder, which began in his teenage years:
“I’m not a conversationalist, I don’t know. Anxious maybe, and maybe like… This is a story I’ve never told. In — I don’t even know if middle school, maybe high school age — I had super, super bad social anxiety, like diagnosed, medication social anxiety.
But like, I can remember one time sitting at my desk, right, this was like, in the middle of taking a test or something and I could remember my whole body would like, turn flush red. I would start sweating, then I would become aware for, God knows what reason, like no one’s looking at me. This is happening to my body. So then, you know it gets like ten times worse. What’s going on? Like, my eyes start watering, like I’m just sitting at my desk.
I think wrestling helped me get out of that to an extent because, not that like, not that I had like low self-worth or anything like that. But, like, wrestling was always my passion and where I felt comfortable, and what I like doing. Once I was able to do that and see some success in it, being surrounded by like twenty people to two hundred people to two thousand people, twenty thousand, like, as that grew, I think you get more comfortable with that and yourself.”
Could it be possible that his anxiety returned in some form? There are no reports explaining why he rarely works or talks on camera, so perhaps it’s a medical issue? Also, AEW wouldn’t want to take the title off Page, because that would punish him for having a mental health condition.
I can imagine that while he feels comfortable most of the time, there may be occasions he isn’t. But this is just me looking for reasons. His absence may have nothing to do with it. Please don’t credit this as a news source! Because it’s an opinion piece and nothing more.
#3. New Talent. — Yes, we know AEW has signed a ton of new talent lately, and showcasing all of them across three hours of Dynamite & Rampage is not a simple task. One of (or both?) the above reasons, combined with AEW’s expanded roster, could be why AEW accepts Page working a limited schedule.
After all, if the World Champion was on every show, it takes a spot away from someone they can build up. Page is established, and he doesn’t need to be there all the time. It feels like everyone involved is content with the fact that the World Champion is a borderline part-timer. The fans have picked up on this, and can’t understand how or why this reign hasn’t lived up to when he won it.
Challengers
Another variable to this is the quality and context of Hangman Page’s title challengers. Let’s go through them:
– Bryan Danielson. His best challenger because both matches were astounding. They continued Page’s momentum after defeating Kenny Omega, and it was helpful turning Danielson heel so Page could be the big winner.
However, because they happened so soon after overcoming Omega, I never felt like Page was in any trouble of losing. Yes, the matches were epic, but the outcomes had to go in his favor. Otherwise, I think we would remember them in higher regard. Therefore, his match with CM Punk has higher anticipation, because he has held it long enough to lose, and Punk (according to many critics) can’t afford to lose.
– Lance Archer. Over a month after retaining to Bryan Danielson, AEW randomly threw Lance Archer in to the mix. A solid choice of opponent to show that Hangman Page can take out bigger guys, but again, there’s no jeopardy here. Archer had been away for a while, so it’s not like AEW had built him up to this moment. We could say that they fed him (not in a jobber way) to Page, just to give him something to do. An Archer victory would have been shocking.
– Adam Cole/Dante Martin. A month later, Page worked two title matches in the same week, which is the only time he has done so. The match with Cole made sense, because they had built up to it, although it had serious competition on the same show from CM Punk vs. MJF and Jon Moxley vs. Bryan Danielson. On Dynamite, Page had a random title match with Dante Martin, which throws the whole ranking system in to question. There were clearly more deserving challengers, but Martin got some spotlight, which is fair enough.
– Adam Cole got yet another shot, this time on Rampage in a Texas Deathmatch. In response to the show’s declining ratings, Tony Khan pulled this out of the hat and it worked. The match was great, but I don’t think anyone believed the title would change hands on Rampage, even more so because its original time slot was terrible and many fans would miss out.
It took over six months for Hangman Page to work in a non-title singles match, which was a well-received encounter with Konosuke Takeshita. The tag matches were fun, yet forgettable, and so is his alliance with the Dark Order, which has been so infrequent that Adam Cole had to ask jokingly if they remained friends. Page’s best challengers have been Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole, and everything else would not be missed if we had the option to erase it from history.
Conclusion
Unless someone releases a statement telling us how and why Hangman Page’s reign has been so sporadic, all we can do is speculate. Yes, it hasn’t lived up to its potential, but I wouldn’t say it has been terrible. There have been high points, but his absence is noticeable, and I hope it has nothing to do with his health. “Cowboy S***” is still over, and he has lost nothing in the ring, so there shouldn’t be much concern.
What’s important now is that Hangman Page and CM Punk take this to another level. Punk apparently needs this win, but I think Page needs it more. If there’s one way to validate Hangman Page’s reign, it’s a victory over CM Punk at Double or Nothing 2022. Many will call for Punk to take the title here, because it may increase ratings and ticket sales, but who is the future here? Punk is 43. Page is 30. The latter will still be in his prime in ten years, while the former will probably be retired, or at least close to it. It’s difficult to call, and this will be Hangman Page’s biggest challenge.
Who do you think will win in his match with CM Punk? Has Page’s title reign been lackluster? Did you know how little matches he’s had? And do you disagree with anything said above? I’m sure some of you will, but that’s what we’re here for. As always, I appreciate you for taking the time. Thank you for reading!
