Shane Page opens up about his goals for MLW and his own independent promotion.
The first pro wrestling contract that Rickey Shane Page signed is with Major League Wrestling and he shared that news in late February.
The 20-year veteran told the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast that his deal with MLW is for multiple years. In addition to being an in-ring performer for the organization, he’ll also be doing agent work. Shane Page’s goal is to do everything he can to get people to ‘stop sleeping’ on MLW.
He mentioned that he has done some agenting for PROGRESS Wrestling and a few other independent promotions. Shane Page is excited about that portion of his deal with MLW and one individual he wants to exemplify through his work is the late Tracy Smothers who helped him early in his career.
It’s a multi-year deal (with MLW). It’s my first-ever contract with any promotion so, really excited about that and yeah, I’m just super pumped and I’m gonna be working backstage as well, agenting with some of the wrestlers so that’s something I’m very interested in is that part of it, you know? Because you can’t wrestle forever, you can’t take bumps forever so, I’m definitely looking to build the résumé on that side of things and I think MLW is the perfect place for me to do that and yeah, I’m super pumped. I can’t wait to get to work. I’m just excited about doing things. I want there to be a show every day so I can just get there and put my nose to the ground and just work hard and make MLW the biggest thing it can be. That’s really my goal. As I said, asses in seats, eyeballs on MLW, that’s my goal. People sleep on MLW for whatever reason and I’m gonna change that. I’m gonna do whatever I can to help elevate them, because they’re great and they’ve been treating me so good. I have no complaints, wonderful, wonderful people run MLW and they really, really treat the wrestlers right which is rare nowadays and I have no complaints.
When they asked me that (to be an agent), I was very pumped… I’ve done it before for other places. For PROGRESS Wrestling, they’ve had me do it a couple of times. I was a bit surprised that they asked me, but, it’s definitely something I have a little bit of experience in and definitely something I’m interested in and I wanna do more. So I was very excited because, you know, doing it on the indies is a bit different than — this is an actual TV product, so it’s a bit more hands-on. It’s not live TV obviously but, I’m just super excited about it because like I said, it’s a skill set that I like and I feel like a lot of the times, I have better ideas for other people than I do for myself so, and I just like working with talent and helping them see things differently that they might not have thought of and just sharing knowledge because I feel like when I was younger, a lot of people didn’t — it was very different back then, it was very much closed off and people were trying to get you out and the few people that did help me, I remember them forever and I always have a positive outlook on those people that did give me advice like, you know, Tracy Smothers is a guy who always, always, always gave everybody advice. He was so nice, he would sit and watch the whole show and come talk to you. He was never mean or vindictive in any sort of way. He was just there to help and that’s really an example I try to live up to because Tracy was one of the best and yeah, it sucks when you get into wrestling and you feel you’re all alone because no one’s telling you and then these kids, they get yelled at or like, oh, they’re bad, they suck and it’s like, no, no one’s telling them, no one’s helping them so, you need that so I like doing that and I’m really excited about that part of it… A little player-coach action.
When asked how he got his start in MLW, Shane Page stated that he’s sure current AEW World Champion MJF was pushing for him to be there.
I think the last (MLW) Battle Riot, just kind of hit me up and I was like, ‘Yeah, I can do that’ and then I did that. That was last year, maybe sometime around September I think when we filmed that. I can’t remember and then yeah, they hit me up again when I was in Japan and they were like, ‘Oh, can you do the show?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I get back that day but yeah, I can do that.’ So, that was a real hellish travel schedule as well. I went from Tokyo to Honolulu, Honolulu to San Francisco, wrestled in San Francisco, took the red-eye from San Francisco, landed in Philly the day of the show, slept for an hour, went to a show and wrestled Mance Warner. Yeah, it was pretty wild and then yeah, I’m pretty sure MJF was really pushing for me, because he’s a very good friend of mine and yeah, I think that’s kind of what it is because last time I showed up, everybody was like, ‘Max keeps talking about you’ and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re good friends.’ So shout out to MJF for that.
This month, Shane Page formally launched his independent promotion, RCW, which is going to be based out of Ohio. The first show is scheduled for March 22nd in Cleveland.
It’ll only be available by signing up to the Patreon. Shane Page wants to provide a platform for inexperienced wrestlers to grow and make mistakes in the ring without it being broadcast to the world. He will have veterans present to agent matches.
I started my new project that I have where I’ve started a very small indie company. It’s called RCW, but it’s not gonna be broadcast for the world to see. The only way to watch it is to sign up for Patreon and it’s gonna be really geared towards younger wrestlers and teaching them how to wrestle and letting them fail because I think the key to success is failure, but nowadays, rookies have to fail live on the internet and everybody sees it and it’s hard. When I first started, some of the matches I had weren’t even filmed. So it’s hard to break that reputation of, oh, they’re not good. But really, they’re just young so this whole entire promotion is just based on that and I’m gonna have myself and our veterans there to agent because again, that’s another relationship once you get to TV wrestling that indie wrestlers, they never have any experience because they don’t do it on the indies so that’s gonna be part of this new promotion is there’s going to be agenting and we’re gonna be giving them specific things because a lot of times, it’s like, ‘Oh, you guys got 8-10, you’re winning.’ It’s like, ‘Okay.’ There’s no direction a lot of the times on the indies so I’m really gonna be doing that so if anybody wants to be following that, you just go to RCWWrestling.net and you can sign up for the Patreon and the first show is up in a few weeks in Ohio but again, room holds 50 people, no one’s ever gonna see it unless you sign up for the Patreon but it’s something I’m really passionate about right now and that I’m excited to get going and to just help teach the next generation and try to leave wrestling better than the way I found it. That’s always my goal.
Coming up for Major League Wrestling is their War Chamber event on April 6th. Shane Page was most recently in action for the organization at their SuperFight show in early February.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
