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Y’All In Texas
AEW Men’s World Championship
TEXAS DEATH
Hangman Adam Page versus Jon Moxley (c)
On October 16, 2025, a few days following WrestleDream 2024 where Jon Moxley defeated (and murdered) Bryan Danielson for the AEW Men’s World Championship, I asked a simple question:
In this, I focused on the four men who came to the ring to witness the death of Bryan Danielson and the rise of the Death Riders first hand: HOOK, Daniel Garcia, Orange Cassidy, and Darby Allin.
I was convinced this would be the journey of Darby Allin. We all were. Darby was in the process of a proverbial mountain in the challenge for Jon Moxley and a literal mountain in wanting to climb Mt. Everest. He was supposed to do it in 2024 but got injured in a match with Jay White. This mountain climb is the reason he isn’t the number one contender right now.
A lot of AEW fans still think that’s the story to be told. AEW rarely breaks from the story they want to tell. They will take an alternate route, but eventually snap right back. AEW however has told a different story, a story we didn’t expect at the time.
The Hero is Defeated Timeline
The men focused on at WrestleDream 2024? They failed. They failed to stop the Death Riders.
Orange Cassidy tried. He faced Moxley twice, once at Full Gear 2024 and the next in the four way at Worlds End. He failed to stop Moxley both times. He’s been away from AEW since March, but his journey to stop Jon Moxley actually ended on January 1, 2025. More on that later.
Daniel Garcia hardly tried. He was too focused on other issues. He won the TNT Championship then entered the Continental Classic. His closest attempt was losing the Casino Gauntlet in January. His one trios match against Death Riders, teaming with Cool Hand and Daddy Magic, ended in a loss. He focused instead on the Don Callis Family.
HOOK would be involved against The Patriarchy for months, eventually forming The Opps along with Samoa Joe and Katsuyori Shibata. HOOK and Joe would beat the Death Riders in a tag match in April, only for Claudio to take out HOOK post match and injure him for months. He still hasn’t returned, save for one run in. He had to watch from the sidelines as Powerhouse Hobbs took his spot in The Opps and beat the Death Riders for the Trios Championship.
Then there’s Darby Allin. Nobody has suffered abuse at the hands of Jon Moxley and the Death Riders like Darby. It was his number one contender shot that Moxley swiped in a match at Grand Slam to face Danielson in the first place. Claudio defeated Darby twice in the ring. Darby tried to focus on the Continental Classic while also begging Will Ospreay to join him in the fight. Ospreay told him to wait until after the Classic.
Darby wouldn’t survive to see it. On the final episode of Rampage, the Death Riders finally disposed of Darby Allin and he hasn’t been seen since.
That’s the story that has been told. These young wrestlers who came to the side of Bryan Danielson after he was defeated? They couldn’t stop the Death Riders. They were unable to organize the AEW roster successfully to combat their numbers games. They couldn’t outsmart Moxley. They couldn’t rise to the occasion. When Orange Cassidy and Darby Allin return to AEW? They will return as failures. We will still love them and be invested in them overcoming said failures, but to ignore they failed is to ignore why Hangman Adam Page is in the spot he is in now.
In Who Stops Jon Moxley? I discussed Page and if he could:
“The only originals to get to the top are Hangman Adam Page (who spent time in ROH and New Japan Pro Wrestling but never as a top guy) and Maxwell Jacob Friedman. Page is now lost in his anger, a furnace demanding fire because revenge didn’t satisfy him.”
A New Summer
I didn’t believe in Hangman Adam Page.
I said at Worlds End After 48 that AEW would have to think about either doubling down on Page as a monster heel or pivot because the heel run had nowhere left to go. I can’t say if they had already planned on Page being the one to beat Moxley at this point. I doubt it. But he was absolutely the best in that match. Moxley had already been losing gas in his matches against opponents, but that fire came back against Page. Even if Page was supposed to work as the number two heel in the match? Fans truly cared about seeing Page versus Moxley.
They said yes to Hangman in that match facing Mox in a way that might have reminded AEW President Tony Khan of when the WWF fans chose Bret “The Hitman” Hart over Lex Luger in the 1994 Royal Rumble. If Tony did recognize it? He needed time to convert Page.
When I wrote No Redemption For Fallen Angels I said that there was no way to the main event again for Hangman Page. He had fallen from grace, years removed from the world championship, left to roam AEW without a purpose.
A few weeks prior to that match with Christopher Daniels, Orange Cassidy faced Hangman Page after their losing efforts at Worlds End. Page destroyed Orange Cassidy, and essentially took OC out of the main title contention. Cassidy never really tried to stop Jon Moxley after that. He knew he couldn’t if he couldn’t beat Page.
The redemption of Adam Page would begin on January 22, 2025, days after the Texas Death Match against Christopher Daniels, when Daniels came out to tell Page that he was retiring.
What Daniels says here is essentially admitting to the mistakes of what culminated into the match. He was looking Adam Page dead in the eye and telling him that yes, you can make mistakes, admit it, and accept the consequences. Daniels had to accept the consequences of his career. Page now had to accept the consequences of his rage.
Texas Death Changes You
I just want to magnify this here. It was losing Texas Death against Swerve Strickland after Swerve invaded his home that started Hangman on this journey to becoming an irredeemable monster.
It was defeating Christopher Daniels in Texas Death that started his redemption arc, making him realize that his anger and fury was getting him nowhere fast. Like I said, he had fallen from grace, left to roam AEW with nothing to show for it. Swerve still became AEW Men’s World Champion, even if he helped cost him the title. When he got a shot at Worlds End he was dismissed by Moxley as too distracted to be able to focus on beating him. Mox was right.
It will now be Texas Death against Jon Moxley that Hangman Page can finally end this loop. Texas Death changes you, and it’s time for Hangman to finally change for the good, and take AEW with him.
A Vacuum to Fill
Way back on October 25, 2024, when Death Riders name hadn’t even been established yet, I spoke about how slow the resistance was to the Death Riders:
“But the AEW side being disorganized and under powered and a little embarrassing this early into the war? That makes sense to me. If this story goes to Revolution, heck, if this story goes for a full year? This needs to feel like a war. AEW needs time to get their shit together. AEW needs to eat a lot of losses before they can win anything. They need to be better fighting themselves than the enemy.”
I stated if this went the long run, we needed this to feel like a war. At times it did. By Revolution? It felt like a war, but a war in which we watched over and over how the heroes couldn’t get their shit together.
By Revolution, you had Adam Copeland trying to rally the troops and finding himself getting turned on by FTR by the next pay per view. It was clear these guys weren’t going to do it for AEW.
It was going to take something else. It was going to take the people Jon Moxley worked hard to not get involved in this.
In The Death Riders I said:
“If AEW wants to take the power back? They are going to need to get people involved who don’t want to get involved. People the Death Riders have been intentionally avoiding so they don’t get involved. It’s going to take becoming allies with those who might backstab you the second you turn your back. You’re going to have to play dirty at times, and you’re going to have to be willing to fight on the days you don’t have much fight left in you.”
At the time I still thought this was Darby’s ascent.
But now there was a giant hole to fill. Darby wasn’t coming back yet. Darby was disposed. At Revolution, Hangman Adam Page defeated Maxwell Jacob Friedman. MJF was furious that fans just watched Page retire Christopher Daniels and they still saw the good in Adam, in a way they never saw in him. He was frustrated that they were both heels but the fans were only rejecting one of them.
That match helped put Page back on track to not only be a babyface to the fans but to redeem himself and put himself in a place where he could fill the vacuum created from Darby’s disappearance.
The Pivot
At Dynasty, the AEW roster watched as Swerve Strickland finally got involved in the affairs of Death Riders.
“They are going to need to get people involved who don’t want to get involved. People the Death Riders have been intentionally avoiding so they don’t get involved.”
This? It works both ways.
Swerve Strickland was the first former AEW Men’s World Champion to challenge Jon Moxley since Hangman was added to the four way at Worlds End 2024. There was a great cry to pivot to Swerve Strickland and have him defeat Jon Moxley at Dynasty 2025, one year since Swerve won the championship at Dynasty 2024.
Moxley felt the heat himself. Now champion for months, he knew he had accomplished a lot of his goals with the Death Riders. The roster was fractured and constantly in-fighting. FTR turned on Adam Copeland, Orange Cassidy and Jay White got injured, Darby Allin was executed, and even if Willow Nightingale was coming to neutralize Marina Shafir? It didn’t change the fact the men would stop in their tracks the moment Shafir physically assaulted them.
But Swerve was different. Swerve was someone he never wanted to get involved. Swerve is the kind of wrestler who could beat Moxley if everything was fair.
That’s when Jon Moxley had to make his first desperate move: calling the Young Bucks.
Moxley likes to act like he doesn’t want the Bucks around, but it’s obvious this reign would have ended at Dynasty 2025 without them. Their lights out lights on Super Dragon appearance they claimed they did for Hangman Adam Page.
There’s another guy the Death Riders don’t want involved in this. Especially if he’s now focused.
Page missed Dynasty, but he entered the 2025 Owen Hart Foundation Men’s Tournament. He wasn’t the favourite to win. That would be Will Ospreay.
Ospreay made sense as the pivot. If Darby Allin is out, it made sense for the man who was once expected to fight side by side with Darby to take his spot. Ospreay couldn’t save Darby from Death Riders because he was too focused on the Continental Classic. Now he can win the Owen with the purpose of challenging Jon Moxley.
At the time I was convinced that was the plan. That was the pivot. We weren’t seeing Hangman win this. This would be, as I coined it (thanks to the band Fake Shark), Another Bummer Hangman Summer.
I didn’t start believing until it became about Ospreay’s Ascension versus Hangman’s Redemption.
In just one month I went from thinking there was no way Hangman could win to believing he could do it and predicting such.
And then he did.
The Liberation of AEW
Will Ospreay promised that if Hangman Adam Page defeated him? He would go to war for him. Ospreay has helped rally the troops, especially The Opps, in backing Adam Page for All In Texas.
It has been tough for him to do, but he has got Swerve Strickland on his side, partially due to Hangman confronting the Bucks and telling them to stay out of Swerve Strickland’s business. Swerve has been embroiled in feud with the Young Bucks, and now Ospreay and Swerve will try to stop the Young Bucks from being able to use their EVP powers to help Moxley.
We’re close to a full year in this war, and Moxley has yet to be stopped. The closest it happened was him losing the Trios Championship for the Death Riders in replacing PAC. He hasn’t been stopped, but everything around him is crumbling. Every advantage is being nullified.
Moxley had PAC and now he doesn’t. He had to reach out to Gabe Kidd of New Japan Pro Wrestling to temporarily replace him, a chaotic uncontrollable Brit who hates AEW and everything it stands for. He once had the Trios Championship and now doesn’t. He’s had to align with The Young Bucks.
Hangman has now cost him his last two advantages: breaking the rules and Marina Shafir.
On Dynamite last week, Adam Page was able to get Jon Moxley to agree to Texas Death, a match which means there’s no rules. You would think at first no rules favours Jon Moxley, but that’s because he is constantly breaking the rules around the match while the babyface tries to play it fair. That’s now gone. Every run in? Page can counter. Page can use weapons just like Moxley. There’s no pretense of fairness. It’s Texas Death.
Page also hit Marina Shafir with a Buckshot Lariat, showing he’s no longer going to freeze up when she comes into the ring. If she’s going to try and stop Page from his redemption? She’s going to get Buckshotted like the rest of them.
We’re now in a situation where Jon Moxley has to beat a man who has beaten him in the past in the same match. He no longer has tricks up his sleeve (or rather, we don’t know what trick he has left) in order to defend the championship. He’s facing a man he never wanted motivated. He isn’t facing the aimless monster from Worlds End 2024. He’s facing the main character of AEW.
In The Liberation of AEW I said that Jon Moxley was ending the Dream Match Era of AEW to bring his Era of War. I pointed out that his original targets were not the best of the company:
“Don’t ever lose sight of the fact that Jon Moxley now has everything he could ever want. He’s at the top of the company, top of the card, with a purpose. He’s AEW Men’s World Champion and he barely had to climb for it. Him and his goons now beat the ever loving crap out of anyone they want to without penalty on the AEW roster. He never has to answer for it because they drive off before they lose the numbers advantage. He’s challenging the undercard wrestlers because he knows he can kick their asses. He’s been doing it since day one. He isn’t challenging MJF who has beaten him. He isn’t challenging Hangman Adam Page who has beaten him. He isn’t even challenging The Elite, probably the biggest target of complacency in the company, complacency and power, and instead leaning on their complacency to avoid a fight. Why? Because The Elite could actually match them, and have in the past.
No, he’s fighting the weak. He’s fighting the ones who never met their potential. He’s presenting himself as someone trying to beat the complacency out of the AEW roster, but do you think for one moment he’d be happy if he wasn’t the top of the mountain? Do you think this works in his mind without him wearing the crown?”
Moxley avoided The Elite by bringing them to his cause. He didn’t challenge MJF because everyone could plainly see Maxwell Jacob Friedman has allowed himself to get distracted by everything except The Death Riders. His only moment of focus was against Hangman Page and he lost.
“He isn’t challenging Hangman Adam Page”
“He’s fighting the weak.”
Jon Moxley got what he wanted. His Era of War? It was actually good for All Elite Wrestling. The show has been better than ever because everyone is at war. The fun times are over. Whether it’s fighting with Hurt Syndicate, Don Callis Family, or the Death Riders? Nobody is complacent anymore. Everyone knows that if you’re not fighting? You’re sitting on the sidelines.
The Peak
Darby Allin was supposed to climb this mountain to face Jon Moxley. That was the plan. The plan failed. Darby didn’t even get up the summit before the Death Riders tossed him down a flight of stairs and has taken him out of commission for all of 2025 so far.
Hangman Adam Page wasn’t the plan. Page climbed up the mountain. Page beat Orange Cassidy. Page retired Christopher Daniels. Page defeated Maxwell Jacob Friedman for his first pay per view singles victory since All Out 2024.
Then again, that was unsanctioned.
The last sanctioned one on one pay per view singles victory for Page since the match with MJF? Jon Moxley. Texas Death. Revolution 2023.
Hangman Adam Page then entered the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament like he did in 2024, but this time he won. He beat Josh Alexander, Kyle Fletcher, and Will Ospreay.
I wish I could say I’m completely confident in the result. Every word you’ve read up to this point (if you have? thank you. Support writers who don’t use AI) has been me feeling this is the result we will get. Hangman Adam Page. Redeemed. Two time AEW Men’s World Champion.
But that look that closed out Dynamite. That look. To Swerve Strickland.
Is Jon Moxley truly out of options? Can Swerve Strickland let go of the past? He suggested he could on Thursday, but that chain was sure difficult to let go.
I guess we’ll have to find out on Saturday.
