At least for today AEW’s villains lay beaten, Moxley got his comeuppance, and with a little help from AEW’s Justice League, the company’s resident Kryptonian is once again AEW World Champion.
A promise pledged, and a word kept.
Several weeks ago on the heels of Hangman Page’s Owen Hart Cup victory he promised he would end the reign of the now-former 4-time champion Jon Moxley. He promised he would remove the championship from the locked briefcase it has called home since last October, and he would hold it high above his head. He pledged that for the fans as much as he did it for himself.
By the end of All In: Texas, the right man won, the right story was told, and the overall execution of Moxley’s downfall was satisfying. It’s debatable whether or not the reign should have gone on for this long, and I think there’s a fair argument in saying there were other options on the table at multiple points since last October. The Catch-22 in that belief is that I would argue, with the reign now in the rearview, that less would have been accomplished by Moxley had it ended by anyone else’s hand.
This story has truly always been Hangman Page’s to take home. The pathway to this point necessarily needed to happen the way it did, otherwise you can’t logically architect the redemption of Page’s character back to his babyface status without first setting the pieces into place.
Moxley’s Reign of Terror
When Moxley won the title from Bryan Danielson last year, immediately the tone read as darker and more cruelly vicious. It was set apart from his first run as the badass company man, the guy who called CM Punk on his garbage, or even the guy who proclaimed it was time to do “legend shit.” This Moxley was someone whose mean streak had finally surfaced, who savagely laid out his friend, and finally ended Danielson’s in-ring career.
In the aftermath Moxley laid out his vision for AEW, what he thought it needed to be, and moreover, what he expected from the man who would eventually dethrone him. He believed that the roster of AEW wanted the glory that comes with success without having to do the work. Moxley believed those same people were content with the status quo of their mediocrity; that they were content with a sliver of success even if it meant falling short of their potential for the sake of resting on laurels. His challenge was to be better, and that until that happened, no one deserved to see the AEW championship.
That held true for the balance of Moxley’s 273 day reign. Over the course of nine months Moxley escaped each match either aided by his own mean streak, the aid of his Death Rider faction, or by his opponents being so ego-driven they couldn’t get out of their own way. This was one of Moxley’s credos, and that was exemplified last December during a Fatal 4-Way also featuring Orange Cassidy, Page and Jay White. In that instance, leading up to the World’s End show White and Page were in the middle of renewing their old NJPW feud and were having a jolly old time getting in each other’s way.
Amidst their squabble, Cassidy was adamant during the entire build that AEW needed to band together to overthrow Moxley. United they stood, divided they fell, that was the underlining thread during the entire run. It was also paid off this weekend at All In as AEW — specifically all of Moxley’s enemies — finally came together, put their own differences aside and ensured Moxley would not finish the night with the title in tow.
Moxley successfully defended the championship seven times, but in the end his eighth defense was thwarted by his own actions coming back to haunt him, while AEW itself met his challenge and came together to realize their own potential as a group to pry the championship back from his clutches.
Hangman Page Comes Back From the Brink
I previously argued that Page winning the Owen on its own merit was his redemption arc coming to a close. Furthering that, if winning the Owen was his redemption, then securing his second world title in the face of brutality, atonement and brotherhood is the beginning of his third act in AEW. Considering their shared history of violence, Page and Mox’s Texas Deathmatch was both a fitting end to Mox’s reign and a perfect transitional point for Hangman.
Mox’s end was the only logical choice, right down to being forced to tap out after a 35-minute bloodbath. Someone forged in violence will likely meet their end the same way, and where Page is concerned he rose to meet Mox’s challenge. In stepping up and moving beyond his own ego, Hangman finally evolved as a character and realized his full potential.
Page’s time in AEW has always been about his journey. His ups and downs, his sprints and his stumbles, his highest of high successes mixed with his lowest lows. Character-wise Page had struggled to find his way since losing the AEW championship three years ago, but he was never lower than during his feud with Swerve Strickland. For his part, Swerve has been one of the more ruthless AEW characters of the last several years and his open declaration that he was going to take Page’s spot paved the road that led to Hangman’s downward spiral into darkness.
There’s a relatively well known Nietzsche quote that applies here that I’m sure you’ve heard before:
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”
A monster is exactly what Page became. He became someone who was a shell of the person we cheered in the early days of AEW, that was part of some of the company’s best early long-form stories. In his place stood someone who burned childhood homes down, or took hypodermic needles, stabbed and “injected” numbing agents (probably?) into their sworn enemies.
These aren’t the markers of heroes, but they’re markers of a common person just trying to get by. The story veers into the extreme, but the lesson holds true. And while we are all competing for goals, if we abandon what we actually believe in to fight something sinister and cruel like Swerve at his worst, then we too transform into exactly what we’re fighting against. Where’s the value in that if we fight only to lose our way? That’s the inherent value in Page’s redemption story as it proves that despite everything we go through every day we can come out on the other side OK. It requires us to understand our mistakes, set our ego aside and make amends especially if there is a shared goal to meet.
This might be a bit lofty for a wrestling story, but it’s in these types of stories that we can find relatability. And maybe we do lose out while gazing into the abyss chasing the boogeyman, but the point of how this story played out with Cassidy setting the table back in November/December, with Will Ospreay telling Swerve and Page to get their shit together and while ultimately being aided by the returning Darby Allin, was that together positive things can be accomplished. A common good is there for the taking.
You might disagree on that point, and that’s OK, but in my view the resurgence of Hangman Page is a quintessential AEW story because he embodies everything the company represents when it is at its best. And although they might do this dance until they’re old and grey, fighting as equals and rivals as though they were Ryu and Ken in the Street Fighter game series, they found common ground in ensuring Mox’s defeat. There’s a certain magic to that storytelling and it’s an element that AEW still does better than most.
AEW’s Impassioned Guardian
There’s another lesser known quote from Nietzsche that comes from the same book that sums up the Hangman:
“That which is done out of love always take place beyond good and evil.”
Concepts of good and evil and the stories that are told on those premises are classics across all mediums, but it also presupposes one character is necessarily right and one is necessarily wrong. One is the hero and one is the villain. Although we can sit and watch those stories and find some degree of solace in goodness prevailing, there’s also a degree of detachment from the story because the grandness of something like a Superman vs. Lex Luthor story is inherently scaling above a grounded human experience. It also presumes absolutes to be the rule.
It’s polished because it’s meant to inspire more than it is to directly connect to us at base levels. That isn’t to say we can’t or shouldn’t experience them, but superhero stories (for example) by nature are fantastical and therefore aren’t rooted in the realities we face every day. It’s more so, “keep that creepy fellow out of my house,” than it is “there’s a flying man in the sky with a red cape fighting genetically engineered humanoids.”
Reality is simple, grounded, and exists within a middle ground. Hangman was never in the right, nor was he in wrong. Mox was never in the right, but he also was not wrong in all of the choices his character made. Even Swerve, who is truly the catalyst of the entire story, had moments that were not truly villainous. If you break them down, they were all very ego-driven, all acted in a way they felt was right, and operated within their subjective morality in contrast to those they felt stood against them.
The kicker here is that they did all of this in consideration of AEW’s best interests, they just had different definitions of what that meant and how that should be achieved. This is a story about anti-heroes, not paragons of virtue who know all, nor people who necessarily want to see the world burn.
Moxley’s entire impetus was to motivate the AEW roster to stand up for itself and realize its collective potential, and for those working day in and day out to achieve the best version of their lives — to become the best versions of themselves. Mox was the catalyst in the restoration of the feeling, which I hope is a phrase that is now very, very deceased. The feeling is restored, everyone can now shut up and move on.
With that notion (hopefully) in the rearview, what does that mean? And what is Page’s role in not only securing it, but protecting it? I think first we need to go back to that quote and decide what that means in the bigger context, and what that means for each of us, and then how we apply that definition to Hangman and this phase of his story arc.
The thread running through everyone involved is the degree to which they feel they are acting in the best interests of AEW. For example, from Moxley’s view his violent run at the top was justified because he believed that in order for AEW to be the best version of itself and maximize its potential, he needed to cast himself as an antagonist to push the people who thought they should be the company’s alphas beyond the confines of who they were in that moment. In doing that, someone like Page, or Swerve, or White would become the best versions of themselves through attrition. The fundamental concept is mettle and value forged from combat.
Flipping that around and looking at just Swerve and Page (since I’ve watched White long enough to know his character will have learned nothing), the two rivals shared the view that Mox’s vision of AEW was not something they subscribed to. They believed that his method was not the right one. Swerve said as much to his face, and he believed that enough that when the time came to put the company before himself, he chose to help his bloodsoaked-rival reclaim the AEW championship for the company over and above his egoism.
Hangman and Swerve: A Forever Dance to the Death
Swerve and Page’s paths have intertwined for nearly two years. The paradigm of their dynamic opposite each other shifted, beginning with Swerve calmly telling Page he was coming for his spot (which he felt Page took for granted) before invading his home and walking into his son’s nursery. Over the course of their feud they met inside a Blood and Guts cage match, had a Texas Deathmatch of their own, and brought it all to an end last September in a Lights Out Steel Cage. By the end, Page was cast as the villain whose out-of-control mania consumed him even as Swerve had turned the corner for his own character. Old feuds die hard, and that harsh tone followed Page into 2025.
What we experience day-to-day affects us positively or negatively, but the net result is change. That has been Page’s experience while being lost inside his own personal abyss since October 2023. So much of what he did was defined by his drive to hurt Swerve at every turn even at his own expense. And yet, echoing his comments last night about the morning after and what securing the AEW title meant after winning it the first time, with Swerve beaten once and for all, what was left for Page other than his own hate?
Nothing. That’s the point. His focus shifted to White, Mox and the AEW title, but the foundation of his drive was still pain, hatred and ego. That was the point of Mox’s mission statements and bold faced challenges to the AEW roster to stand up to him, and where both White and Page initially failed. They couldn’t get out of their own way.
Page’s turning point was that Texas Deathmatch with Christopher Daniels in January, and it was within the aftermath that he began to see the darkness that shrouded his path. After that it was through his match with Will Ospreay that he course-corrected, and it was Ospreay who helped pull him back from the edge and toward who he once was. This was the truest version of Page, and he is the one who swore he would regain the AEW title and bring it back into the light for everyone — not just himself.
That idealized version of Page is the man who carried the AEW flag proudly, who believed in its mission and what the company could represent. That passion and determination poured out of his heart straight to the mic when he delivered that promo in May, and you believed him. Hangman has an authenticity in his character that is organic; when you look in his eyes you believe his words, and when you hear his words you understand their value.
He is not showy, he speaks plainly, keeps his word, and fights for what he believes in because it’s morally right. And how you interpret that is subjective; that in a nutshell is his path. Even at his lowest, you wanted him to pull through because you believed in him despite his tragic fall. It’s why we cheered, and it’s why we rallied behind him once again. That’s why when his original theme boomed over the speakers last night that the crowd erupted; it’s understood what that theme means. That’s secondarily the power of music in pro wrestling.
Hangman Page represents the best of AEW, and that theme is synonymous with him at his best. Where his more Outlaw-centric theme rang dead and reflected who he became, Page’s OG theme is representative of Hangman when he is fueled by purpose and clarity of self. It’s a highlight of what he is capable of, it’s symbolic of someone who can go to their worst enemy and have a conversation with them about letting go of the past and the awful things that were done in the name of ego. Burying the hatchet in the interest of moving forward. We can never forgive nor forget, but we can move forward. Page is our avatar. We may never be the same again, and each day will affect us differently, but that doesn’t mean we need to stand still.
Each person or moment we experience branches who we can be into separate paths and how we choose affects where we’re going. For Page, the end of that road was atonement and understanding with Swerve, and through that he re-discovered who he was, and rose above hate, cynicism and Jon Moxley to become what we always knew he was — someone who was a good person, who worked hard, and always resorted to “Cowboy Shit” when it came to fighting passionately for what he believed in.
The path may never be direct, but the journey defines the unclear destination. For Page that meant rising to his greatest height from his most desolate low, aided by his sworn enemy, to achieve a common goal and passion they both shared.
