The AEW World Champion discusses his journey to the title and his run thus far.
This week’s edition of AEW Dynamite is the company’s ‘Winter Is Coming’ special and headlining the show is Hangman Adam Page’s first defense of the AEW World Championship. Hangman is scheduled to defend the title against Bryan Danielson.
Ahead of the match, Hangman chatted with Renee Paquette on her Oral Sessions podcast and the two discussed Page’s journey to the world title. Hangman expressed his thought that he doesn’t believe his road to the world title was a grand scheme plan that was set in motion from day one of AEW. In 2019, when he took on Chris Jericho at All Out to determine the first-ever AEW World Champion, Page felt that it was a ‘too fast too soon’ situation for him and thinks the fans felt the same way.
I wouldn’t even talk about, at least my journey to the AEW World Championship as 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. When AEW started and I realized I was going to be suddenly like — I was just the guy losing all the BULLET CLUB multi-man matches. I was, not to say a ‘nobody,’ but I certainly wasn’t like the main event guy who was suddenly going to be main eventing the first-ever title match in AEW. I knew people wouldn’t buy it and I knew it didn’t matter what I said, it didn’t matter what I did in the time between, it was too fast, it was too soon. I knew people might — they would be forgiving, they would go, ‘Oh yeah, okay.’ But I knew deep down they wouldn’t buy it. It felt like I got off on the wrong foot and I wanted to rectify that and it felt like the only way you can is to be vulnerable and to let that loss and that disappointment come out, you know what I mean? Over a long time and every week we would get to TV and it wasn’t like some grand scheme of, ‘How do we get back to Adam Page winning the world title?’ I just would think, ‘How do I feel about this? What would I feel about this?’ And, ‘Okay, let’s do that this week.’
Page was last in action at Full Gear where he won the title from Omega. He admitted that it has been frustrating because he hasn’t wrestled since winning the title a month ago. Despite that, he described the feeling of being AEW World Champion as “surreal” and “incredible”.
It’s great [being AEW World Champion]. It’s a little surreal. I don’t know that it’ll ever sink in at this point, you know what I mean? It’s also a little frustrating, because I’ve worked so hard for so long, I’ve won this championship and I have not gotten to wrestle a match since I won it and it’s been three or four weeks and I’ve been asking for a match with Bryan Danielson since the Wednesday after the pay-per-view. I haven’t gotten to wrestle since then so it’s kind of like frustrating as well. I’m sure it probably feels that way for people in other sports where like you win the Super Bowl or whatever and then you just don’t play football for a long time, which is not what I want at all so that’s a little frustrating but, otherwise, incredible feeling. Incredible feeling to know that, kind of like all myself that I put into everything since AEW started, it wasn’t rejected, it was embraced. That actually helped me achieve something, you know? Because it totally could’ve went the other way where people just sh*t on who you are or whatever, especially when you become so vulnerable and try something different but it worked so, some kind of feeling.
In addition to Hangman Page versus Bryan Danielson, there are several more matches taking place at Winter Is Coming and those are listed as followed:
- AEW World Championship: Hangman Adam Page (c) vs. Bryan Danielson
- Dynamite Diamond Ring: MJF (c) vs. Dante Martin
- No-DQ Match: Hikaru Shida vs. Serena Deeb
- Wardlow vs. Matt Sydal
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Oral Sessions with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
