Hangman Adam Page is not having the summer his fans expected to have for him. Which is funny because this happens every summer.
Summer tends to begin around the end of June and go until the end of September.
“Bad, bad boy”
In 2018, Hangman Adam Page was wrestling on the biggest American independent wrestling stage wrestling had seen at that point with All In. The Golden Elite were in the main event. Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega were having big matches under it. Cody Rhodes was wrestling for the NWA World Heavyweight championship.
Hangman was wrestling Joey Janela in a Chicago Street Fight which ended with penis druids and the resurrection of Joey Ryan. Page won the match but was carried out of the arena. By penis druids. The less said the better.
In 2019, carrying from the success of All In, All Elite Wrestling formed and at All Out he was getting a chance to become the first ever All Elite Wrestling Men’s World Champion. He just had to defeat Chris Jericho to do so. He showed up to the arena on a horse. He put his heart and soul into his promos in the build up. He lost. That loss, coupled with losses soon after, pushed Hangman Page into a downward spiral and led to an eventual drinking problem in the fall.
That drinking problem would actually lead to the greatest part of his career as it pushed his career from an eventual heel turn to instead becoming AEW World Tag Team Champion with Kenny Omega and defeating The Young Bucks at Revolution to retain the titles in arguably the greatest match in company history.
Would the summer of 2020 be different? Actually it was the same. Kenny Omega and Hangman Page started to have issues. FTR played Hangman Page like a fiddle as he helped cost the Bucks a rematch against Omega and Page. FTR would defeat Page and Omega for the AEW World Tag Team Championship at All Out in 2020. Another cruel summer.
“Shiny toy with a price”
Hangman would again be depressed and nearly fall into a cult, watching Kenny Omega go on to win the AEW Men’s World Championship. In the winter of 2021, Hangman picked himself up and decided he’d also go after the championship. He got all the way to getting a title shot.
Then it got hot.
Hangman Page would put up his title shot in a 10 man elimination tag match in the hopes of getting The Dark Order a tag title shot against the Young Bucks. The team would lose and Hangman Page this time wasn’t on All In/All Out at all. He was absent from what was considered the biggest show in AEW history. The first match from CM Punk in years. The shocking debuts of Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole. It’s almost like the card was stacked to ensure Hangman Page’s absence wouldn’t be felt so much.
But Hangman would return, get his title shot back, and would beat Kenny Omega for the AEW Men’s World Championship at Full Gear 2021. Once again his successes would come post summer. Page would once again prove himself to be one of the best wrestlers in the world with two incredible matches against Bryan Danielson.
“I don’t wanna keep secrets just to keep you”
2022 rolled in with AEW having incredible momentum behind Adam Page as their AEW Men’s World Champion. That momentum would end up shutting not in the summer but right prior to this time, as CM Punk would defeat Hangman Page at Double or Nothing. The promo prior to the match would be the public verbal shot leading to two years of headaches before CM Punk’s eventual firing from AEW. A lot of people blame Hangman Page for this as if he’s the reason CM Punk tried to assault two co-workers in consecutive years. What’s the next season? Oh right. Summer.
Hangman would flounder a bit, getting a shot at the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at Forbidden Door but losing the four way match. He would lose a Royal Rampage shot and eventually got convinced to replace Ten for The Dark Order in the AEW World Trios Championship tournament. This would lead to the team making the finals and facing The Elite at All Out 2022.
Did they win? Are you paying attention? Cruel summer!
At the very end of the summer on September 21, Adam Page looked to be turning things around by winning an AEW Men’s World Championship title shot in winning the Golden Ticket Battle Royal. He would end up getting knocked out by Jon Moxley in their match. Guess the summer lasted a little longer that time.
“Killing me slow, out the window”
2023 would see the summer beginning with Hangman Page joining The Elite again and beating Blackpool Combat Club at Forbidden Door and Blood and Guts. However this was the first year that All In was now in the All Elite Wrestling family, returning from 2018. Back in 2018 he won but was carried out by penis druids. In 2023, teaming with Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi as The Golden Elite, they would lose to Konosuke Takeshita teaming with Jay White and Juice Robinson of Bullet Club Gold.
2023 felt good on paper but in practice it felt like Hangman Page was more lost than ever as he wasn’t close to the title picture anymore. He even won a match finally at All Out, breaking a four year losing streak, but it wasn’t even on the main card. He won a battle royal on the pre-show. Would the battle royal win lead to another world title match? No. Not really. It just led to the ROH Six Man Tag Titles.
Young Bucks and Hangman Page would win the titles, never defend them in ROH, only defend them once (in the meantime Page lost to Swerve Strickland at WrestleDream and Jay White on Dynamite just to make it clear how things weren’t going so well) and would drop the titles on a random Dynamite to Mogul Embassy.
Hangman’s cruel summer felt like it was extending to the autumn as Hangman Page was now feuding with Swerve Strickland. Despite being often called The Protagonist of AEW, Hangman Page watched the fans side with Swerve Strickland no matter how many heinous deeds he did to Hangman. He literally invaded his home and the crowds still chanted for Swerve.
Hangman would once again prove he’s one of the best wrestlers in the world with an amazing Texas Death match with Swerve Strickland, only to once again lose to Swerve. Swerve had his number and now he was taking his spot.
“Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes”
In 2024, Page couldn’t stop the rise of Swerve Strickland, and it was turning him more and more wicked. The two would go to a time limit draw, both entering a main event match with Samoa Joe at Revolution. Joe would retain. Swerve would get a rematch. Page would disappear.
Swerve would end up essentially having Hangman Page’s spot and becoming AEW Men’s World Champion, a championship he holds up to today. Hangman Page promised us all that Swerve would never become champion and Swerve has made him a fool.
So much of a fool in fact that Hangman Page returned… in the summer.
And that return came the Owen Hart Foundation tournament now with a guaranteed title shot to the winner at All In. A clear path to Swerve Strickland, to finally enact revenge.
Page would lose in the final to Bryan Danielson, whose goal of winning the AEW Men’s World Championship before ending his full time career was just a higher priority than Hangman’s rage fuelled journey of revenge. This despite Hangman Page cutting quite possibly the best promo of the year and Danielson acting like a guy on vacation instead of a guy trying to achieve the last great moment of his full-time wrestling career.
Hangman wouldn’t give up his quest for Swerve and rejoined The Elite to take on Team AEW at Blood and Guts, only for his team to lose and for him to never properly get his hands on Swerve. They did meet, and when they did it elicited the biggest reaction of the summer. The fans absolutely want Swerve Strickland and Hangman Adam Page. But they can’t have it. Not yet.
“You say that we’ll just screw it up in these trying times”
Page is now looking at All In and this time he doesn’t have a guaranteed match on the card at Wembley Stadium. It looks like he could fight Jeff Jarrett, or enter himself into the Casino Gauntlet for a guaranteed shot. Either way, it’s another summer. Another cruel summer for Hangman Page. His fans should be used to this by now.
Would All In work better if Hangman Page was going to face Swerve Strickland for the AEW World Heavyweight Championship? It would. You could have Hangman finally get his win only to drop to Swerve down the road in the final match of the feud. It should have been Hangman Page beating Swerve at Blood and Guts to get his shot down the road.
Saying they should be used to it doesn’t mean they have to like it. But Hangman is in many ways a cursed wrestler. He’s cursed with immense talent that doesn’t get the attention of his peers at times. He’s arguably one of the best pro wrestlers in the world, and at times his resume demands to be ahead of the likes of Will Ospreay in the conversations but rarely is. He has an incredible connection to the audience and fans want to see him succeed, only to be constantly beaten down with cruel summers and the reminders that his actions helped lead to the exit of CM Punk. Even though, you know, CM Punk got himself fired punching co-workers that weren’t the guy he was actually angry at. Either way, people to this day blame Hangman Page for this and not the one who couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
“Fever dream high in the quiet of the night”
There is a possibility that Page wins the Casino Gauntlet (if he’s even in it) and Danielson defeats Strickland in the main event. Swerve could push Adam Page to put up his guaranteed title shot on the line against him at All Out. It would be a way to get back to the match, but it still wouldn’t be on the biggest stage. It also wouldn’t be for the AEW World Heavyweight Championship.
And if this did happen, I honestly would have Swerve Strickland beating Hangman Adam Page again. Swerve getting his rematch with Bryan Danielson, and Swerve beating Danielson at WrestleDream in Tacoma, Washington. Two natives of the state of Washington in the main event. Swerve could win the championship back as Danielson’s true Final Countdown. Hangman would be 0-3-1 against Swerve at that point and realistically shouldn’t be anywhere near him for the title.
However, that’s what leads to a man already going through turmoil and hell to finally break into the ultimate villain of AEW, doing whatever it takes to force that one last shot against Swerve Strickland, and this time beating him. This time taking the AEW Men’s World Championship, and this time being at the top of AEW for all of the wrong reasons.
“It’s a cruel summer with you”
Whichever way AEW goes, I hear Hangman Page fans and their complaints. It sucks when the most over story in the company for the men isn’t treated with the respect it deserves and the level it deserves because the owner wants to instead make magic happen twice and re-create the experience he had in Sting’s retirement with Bryan Danielson’s in the same year. AEW President Tony Khan has outright admitted it was his favourite moment in the company history, so him trying to repeat it just feels like he’s chasing that high. A great wrestling story isn’t going to be the same as a great wrestling exit.
(Even if that great wrestling exit should have been a great wrestling story, but that’s for another time.)
Again, I understand the complaints of Hangman Page fans. I’m one of them. But I’m also aware that Hangman Page keeps disappearing (for legitimate reasons) at the worst possible times. Hangman Page keeps letting himself get overshadowed by others (the 2021 debuts, Swerve Strickland getting cheered over him) and I don’t blame these things leading to a booker being apprehensive with him.
For the day one AEW fan, it’s frustrating to not see Adam Page and Maxwell Jacob Friedman get their big title program at the top, and it’s frustrating when either man has to take a step back for whatever the new signee is. Both men are playing heels with this issue as the subtext of their stories, and longtime fans can read the subtext.
Hangman Adam Page still has a lot of time in his career, and he’s not losing to anyone that makes no sense. I do feel that leaving this cruel summer and entering 2025, AEW has limited options when it comes to their top heel. MJF and Adam Page are pretty much top of the list. If AEW wants to focus on Will Ospreay, Swerve Strickland, and Darby Allin as top babyfaces, they should consider going all the way with Page as AEW Men’s World Heavyweight Champion and having those babyfaces chase him. MJF had his run, and it would be good to continue taking a break from him for a little longer.
If Adam Page having cruel summers is part of his canon, making him AEW Men’s World Heavyweight Champion and losing it next summer would be the perfect way to write his story as a top heel in the company. The perfect way to make the suffering earned.
Photos by All Elite Wrestling
