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AEW Revolution 2025
Maxwell Jacob Friedman versus Hangman Adam Page
(spoilers for Blade Runner 2049)
In Blade Runner 2049, Niander Wallace toys with Rick Deckard to try to get information from him. Rick Deckard tells Niander he knows what’s real. Niander brings out the mother of his child, or so he thinks. A replicant of the woman he loved, from the day he first fell in love with her. He stands in shock. He then turns and says, “Her eyes were green.” Niander orders her to be shot dead.
What some people miss is that Rick Deckard lied. Her eyes weren’t green. But this is how he knows the difference between what’s real and what’s fake. How others who know perceive the importance of their life. If you don’t care about the life of something existing you won’t hesitate to end it if it’s not to your intended result. Niander killed that replicant immediately. Or ended that program, if you want to see it in Niander’s perspective.
Deckard said he knew the difference between real and synthetic. “I know what’s real.” More importantly, he knows how others react to real and how they react to what they don’t believe.
I spoil this scene in Blade Runner 2049 because the feud between Hangman Adam Page and Maxwell Jacob Friedman has revolved around that term. It’s funny since pro wrestling is inherently a business about the illusion of real. Whether it’s taking falls in amateur wrestling bouts in the Klondike to steal gold from miners or convincing people that The Elite now hate each other to the point of trying to end each others careers, it’s all a facade. It’s a performance.
Just how deep do you believe in the performance is what separates the best professional wrestlers, the best workers, from the rest.
There’s also more than one way to make people believe. You can make them believe by blurring the lines of reality and fake, and you can make them believe by just being so convincing that you want to inflict violence that people believe that’s a realistic reaction to the situation. There’s also another level, the luchanarrative dissonance I’ve discussed previously, of making something that’s believable in the world of pro wrestling but wouldn’t be believable outside of it. No different to one believing Spider-Man is easily shooting web at a high angle towards buildings, landing the shot regardless of wind speed, and being held in weight to swing effortlessly. We believe it because the world allows us to.
Hangman Adam Page and Maxwell Jacob Friedman both fight each day to make you believe that they are real in their own way. They do it using the tools of the world they are provided it. Success is based on how much you’re convinced in it.
I’ve recently heard people criticize MJF as someone who you can “see the strings” in his matches. You know, the claim he’s trying to appease critics instead of trying to win a wrestling match. I’ve heard this same criticism from people talking about Kenny Omega and it just causes me to roll my eyes because how is that seeing the strings but every wrestling match from the 1970s and 1980s where the babyface does a big silly Bugs Bunny set up to a punch not the same? You can see the strings on both. One they just prefer.
I don’t think MJF is essentially faker than Hangman Adam Page, but there’s definitely a performance to him that’s based in researching the greats. MJF has watched Roddy Piper, he’s watched Ric Flair, he’s watched The Rock. He’s seen the way big personalities get big reactions. He tries to stay in character at all times. Staying in character at all times is his way of saying he’s never breaking the line. MJF insists he isn’t a character. This is who he is, and trying to find that other person is a fools errand.
What we do know with MJF is that his character, the entire basis of it, is a man driven to be successful to prove his insecurities wrong. He’s constantly aware of his criticisms, from before he was a wrestler to when he is AEW Men’s World Champion, and MJF carries it as a chip on his shoulder forever. He’s always fighting to prove the world wrong, even when the world agrees with him. When MJF proved he could wrestle the absolute best like Bryan Danielson for over an hour, he couldn’t stay that wrestler. He had to find a new lane to drive, because the new lane had a new chip.
It’s that eternal insecurity that drives Maxwell Jacob Friedman down every lane and has driven him to success and failure simultaneously. When he looks at Adam Page, it’s not looking into a mirror. It’s looking into a puddle. The image resembles you but it’s dirty, it’s changing shape, and it’s even if you’re looking down on it? It’s also looking down on you.
Hangman Adam Page also suffers insecurity. His insecurity led to his casual drinking. It made him the biggest babyface in All Elite Wrestling. His faltered relationship with The Elite, the group that got him to the dance, that got him opportunities MJF claimed he was jealous of (even though he had a relationship with Elite member Cody Rhodes that helped get him opportunities at the same time!), Hangman threw that relationship away, and eventually fought against it. A drinking addiction, throwing away powerful friends, making enemies out of said friends? These things are supposed to hinder your career. It instead pushed Hangman to the AEW Men’s World Championship. He never conquered his insecurities, but he didn’t let them ruin him either.
It’s this story that Hangman tells that makes him real. It’s why he can say that. It’s why nobody talks about seeing the strings with him. Hangman, for all he has done, always exists in a world of professional wrestling that’s believable because it’s about the story he tells with his face, with his voice, and with his actions. He isn’t built on a lie. He’s built on truth he tells and allows to ripple with every stone thrown. The illusion doesn’t break.
MJF was comfortable being the villain again, but what he couldn’t stand was Hangman Adam Page also being the villain. Hangman burning Swerve’s house down, Hangman shoving a syringe in Swerve’s mouth then smashing his head over with a steel chair. Hangman trying to be the monster of All Elite Wrestling. That was the one time MJF felt like Adam Page wasn’t being real. He was trying to be… him. And it didn’t fit him.
Maxwell wasn’t wrong.
At the same time, it annoyed Max that the crowd still cheered Hangman throughout it all. It didn’t matter how much evil he inflicted. It didn’t matter if Hangman didn’t think he could be absolved of his crimes. The AEW fans absolved it for him. MJF wasn’t wrong. The fans were ready to forgive Adam Page for everything, even if they still loved Swerve Strickland. They were willing to forgive Page for ending the career of Christopher Daniels, because even Christopher Daniels was willing! It’s because they know why Page does what he does. They know his truth.
Yet Max continues to live with his crimes, and is booed for them, because all of his crimes carried a lie. MJF has been constantly trying to find an easy way out of everything, and find any way to manufacture an easier road to drive. This is, in essence, the true difference between Real Hangman and Not Real Maxwell. Both of them can make you believe, but Hangman Adam Page, even when he’s in the wrong? It’s justified. MJF can justify his actions, but he can never be justified in them.
The one time he had a chance? That’s when he returned to AEW in 2024 and attacked Adam Cole. He finally had that moment to be justified in his actions. And he blew it all the moment he heard Will Ospreay get just as loud of a reaction as MJF got. He blew it on trying to push Daniel Garcia out of All Elite Wrestling just because he enjoyed what Ospreay wanted to give him as much as what MJF tried to. His jealousy, his insecurity, refused to let him be justified in his actions any longer.
But Hangman? With flames running up his gear, what should have been the lowest of his actions, ending the in-ring career of Christopher Daniels? Ended up his moment of redemption. Daniels went out a respected warrior, dying on his shield, fighting a battle he couldn’t win. Hangman feels this every time his insecurity starts creeping in. It’s a battle he doesn’t know if he can win.
Ever since Hangman was filled with rage by the actions of Swerve Strickland, it’s actually taken him closer to the AEW Men’s World Championship than he was before it. The Revolution match against Swerve and Samoa Joe, the finals of the Owen Tournament, and World’s End four way are all closer to the title than when he was fighting Jon Moxley or rejoining The Elite.
Now the rage has subsided. He’s walking back down the babyface tunnel. He’s recognizing the cheers of the crowd. He’s no longer confused or conflicted or driven by anger. He’s focused. He can thank not just Christopher Daniels for this? But thank Maxwell Jacob Friedman. Because if MJF didn’t call Hangman out on how being the villain doesn’t suit him? Hangman couldn’t look Max in the eye and tell him he’s real.
But beyond all this? It’s Revolution. It’s a one on one match. We haven’t seen these men wrestle since 2019 against each other, not counting the Brodie Lee Memorial trios match. Swerve Strickland and Ricochet might be for a title shot but MJF and Adam Page are essentially staking claim to what some might consider the true main event of Revolution. Cope and Moxley might be fighting over the title and Swerve/Ricochet for the title shot, but MJF and Adam Page are fighting as two men everyone knows should be in the main event of the company. Two former champions who could and should be champion one day again. This match has unbelievable stakes in being able to put both men back to the top of the show, and it has the capability of stealing the show in a way that might put all other performers in doubt.
Both men, outside of storyline purposes, need this match to be the talking point after the pay per view. Regardless of who wins, where this goes next is about making both these men the face of AEW going forward. If either fall short, they could end up left behind for the rest of the year.
This program was a wake up call for both men. It’s Hangman knowing who the hell he is, and MJF remembering who the hell he’s supposed to be. The main character. The main villain.
Soon it should be for the main prize. If AEW can tell what’s real.
