AEW World Champion Hangman Page will make his first title defense this Wednesday against Bryan Danielson. His ascent to the world title has been lauded as an example of long-term booking but Page doesn’t feel it was. He recently appeared on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette and spoke about his AEW career thus far.
“I wouldn’t even talk about, at least my journey, to the AEW World Championship, as like some kind of grand scheme that was hatched on day one, or something like that, because it never was. At least to me, it was never that way,” Page said.
He continued to talk about how he was booked in the first ever AEW World Title match but at the time, he didn’t feel the fans saw him as a main event guy.
“When AEW started, and I, you know, realized, I was going to be suddenly… I was just a guy losing all the Bullet Club multi-man matches. I wasn’t nobody, but I certainly wasn’t the main event guy, who was suddenly going to be main eventing the first-ever title match in AEW. Like, I knew people wouldn’t buy it and it didn’t matter what i said, it didn’t matter what I did, it was too fast, too soon. I knew people, they might be forgiving, but I knew deep down they wouldn’t buy it.”
Hangman Page Said His AEW Career Got Off On The Wrong Foot
Page felt like he got off on the wrong foot by challenging Chris Jericho to determine the first-ever AEW World Champion.
“I felt like I got off on the wrong foot and I wanted to rectify that. I felt like the only way you can is to be vulnerable to let that loss and that disappointment come out over a long time. and every week, we’d get to tv and it wasn’t like some grand scheme of ‘how we get back to Adam Page winning the world title.’ I just think, how do I feel about this? What would I feel about this? Then ok, let’s do that this week.”
Page’s full appearance on the show is available below:
If you use any of the above quotes please credit Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette with a H/T to SEScoops for the transcriptions.