“Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.”
– Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
AEW Collision opened with a brutal violence match of Texas Death, as Hangman Adam Page defeated Christopher Daniels in what many have said was the final in-ring match of Daniels 31-year-career. Daniels didn’t end his career in a win, on a night built around him. He didn’t have the Sting ending. He didn’t have the 20 Undertaker endings.
No, Christopher Daniels went down on his shield. Fighting in the opener on a Saturday night in front of under 2,000 people, many who cheered for his opponents destruction of him. The Fallen Angel had many career rebirths. Tonight was the final flight.
If this serves any purpose, it’s to remind the other veterans on the roster what their purpose in pro wrestling is to be once you get to a certain age. There were two men in their 50s in the main event that night. Another man in his 50s wrestling a singles match when he carries a tag championship and six man championship held along with much younger men. Their goal is to continue holding onto whatever piece of the show they can keep from the rest, slowly aging into Gollums for whatever brass ring their fingers can still grasp.
Daniels wasn’t doing that. It was frustrating to see Page do this program instead of something greater, but Christopher Daniels was doing it for a greater purpose. The goal was to end his career against someone he helped mentor, someone who learned a lot from him, and someone who could use this destruction of him to further his agenda as a top wrestler.
Texas Death
The match itself won’t be remembered like we will remember the matches Page had against Strickland and Moxley, but it was a reminder that Hangman Adam Page is currently positioned well below where he should be. Daniels was essentially a martyr for the argument that Hangman should be in a much higher position.
Daniels best shot was the Angel Wings followed by the Best Moonsault Ever, only a piece of the barbwire covered table between Daniels body and Page. Page was down for nine counts but shot back up. Daniels didn’t get close to defeating him. He simply brought the rage back inside of him.
Hangman responded with a tombstone piledriver to a steel chair, fans in Cincinnati chanting for one more time. Hangman instead gave them a Dead Eye on the steel chair, before preparing the Buckshot Lariat. Daniels struggled to get to his feet, covered in blood with one arm not working.
Hangman would fire the Buckshot Lariat to the back of Daniels neck. Perched over his fallen body, referee Bryce Remsburg counted to ten.
As Page’s music played he walked to the back, only to turn around and move back to the ring. Page picked up Christopher Daniels, beaten beyond reproach, and dropped him with his own Angel’s Wing. The crowd watched in silence now at what was essentially the end of The Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels.
Matt Menard asked the best question: What’s going to satisfy him?
The AEW Career of Christopher Daniels
Before we try to answer that question, let’s reflect on what this program meant. Daniels career in All Elite Wrestling certainly didn’t go the way I think anyone expected it to. He entered as part of SCU and was quickly cast as the third man behind Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky when SCU won the AEW World Tag Team Championship.
Daniels lost more than won until late 2020 when him and Kazarian as SCU (in ROH they were Addiction and TNA they were Bad Influence) would go on a tag team match winning streak that pushed well into 2021. This would earn them a title shot against the Young Bucks which they lost and had to break up SCU forever. A lot of people at the time thought it was the farewell of Daniels career back then, as he didn’t wrestle on Dynamite again until 2022 against Bryan Danielson.
Daniels would keep busy usually on lower card matches, sometimes getting on TV to put someone over like Jon Moxley and Juice Robinson. He formed a fun tag team with Matt Sydal in 2023 but it was pretty clear we were watching the finishing stretch of his career.
In 2024, AEW decided to make him an interim EVP so most of his time would be spent in a quasi authority role and his similarity to Adam Pearce doing a similar job in another company made Daniels a frustrating part of the show. I expressed multiple times over last year how much I hated bad mouthing Daniels in the EVP role because I wanted to respect him and treat his career with the reverence it deserved. I’ve watched Daniels since I saw him face Rhino in ECW in 1999 and thought he’d be a star back then. I didn’t want to hate the guy but his role was thankless and always brought the show to a screeching halt.
All this culminating into him no longer in the role of EVP trying to help Adam Page as a friend, as a mentor, as someone who has known Page since he started in the pro wrestling industry. Page returned it in scorn, as he has done for the past two years.
What’s Next for the Hangman?
For Hangman Adam Page this is just another Saturday of him having to beat someone below his place on the card because he needs something to do, but it’s also a better version of the program he just had in autumn against Jeff Jarrett.
The program with Jarrett was a distraction from his primary program against Swerve Strickland, ending with a lumberjack strap match which was supposed to have heat and be a violent finale but instead bordered on comedy. Jarrett was an old man in Page’s way then became a thorn in his side in his quest to become Men’s World Championship.
Jeff Jarrett is now closer to that road than Page is. Somehow.
Daniels gave Page the real final match he needed. With real heat and real stakes. Page left that match reminding everyone what a top heel is supposed to look like in a company dealing with top heels having to use potty language and cheating to get heat. After his losses to Jay White and losing in the four way at World’s End, Hangman Page feels feared again.
Of course, fear needs a platform, and it won’t matter if Hangman Adam Page is doing little to nothing and not working a program to move himself up the card. With a heel world champion there’s only so far you can go, so his best choices are either a title program or a singles program.
His rival Swerve Strickland got out of the Bobby Lashley program with a loss not redeemed, and seems to prefer going right into it with Ricochet as a better feud partner. That program is easily the hottest in the company at the moment. Ricochet is one of the few heels doing it right, to the point where he even got to troll Page for heat in the Casino Gauntlet.
Orange Cassidy could had been that man but AEW made sure that match was a one and done. Page destroyed OC and moved on. Jay White has his number and that’s that. It’s too bad Will Ospreay is doing his thing with Kenny Omega because that would be a very interesting program. The only other babyface I would consider is Mark Briscoe, who doesn’t seem to have much to do since the Continental Classic.
The biggest issue going forward with Page is no matter what he does now? He’s getting Cowboy Shit chants. He’s getting cheers even when he does everything correct as a heel. There’s starting to become a part of the crowd that just refuses this man’s road of violence as anything more than what they want. It’s the same thing that turned Swerve babyface against him. It’s something AEW has to be very careful with.
You put Page against the wrong opponent, like let’s say they put him against HOOK who has had at times crowd turn on his matches. You leave a very good chance for HOOK to get turned on and Hangman to get the babyface reactions no matter what he does to HOOK. I wouldn’t mind Shibata against Page soon though.
One Fallen Angel to Another
So how do you satisfy him, as Menard asked? Not sure. My push has always been to make Hangman Adam Page a champion, even if it’s not the Men’s World Championship. Make him International Champion but hate it. Kick the belt around like Tetsuya Naito did to the IWGP Intercontinental Championship in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Am I saying treat him like Naito when he couldn’t get back to the main event?
Yes.
Unfortunately, I don’t see gold in Page’s future with a midcard, main event, and significant chunks of television time being devoted to getting old acts over. Jeff Jarrett, Adam Copeland, Christian Cage, Chris Jericho, Dustin Rhodes, and the returning Samoa Joe will all likely get their piece and guys like Page will just have to take the scraps. Unless he’s fighting one of them? There’s likely no room for him.
Page has told us before there’s no redemption for the things he has done. He’s added Christopher Daniels career to the list of things he’s done that he will never be redeemed. By hitting that Angels Wing, he’s essentially become a Fallen Angel himself. Fallen from the grace of the main event, years removed from being AEW Men’s World Champion, now left to roam the AEW world without purpose.
No redemption for fallen angels.
