Hangman Adam Page discusses his hatred for Swerve Strickland, the AEW World title, and this weekend’s All In pay-per-view.
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Paste: All In is coming up this weekend. Last year you were in a trios match at the show; this year you’re not currently confirmed for a match. Do you think we’ll see you at Wembley this weekend?
Hangman Adam Page: Well, I’ve bought a ticket. I booked a hotel. I will physically be at All In. I’m not going to tell you my intentions, not going to tell you my thoughts, but I will be there because they want to book me in a match. If I can get my way into a match, I certainly have my opinions on which it would be. I have my ideas on what I want to do at Wembley and I will be present.
Paste: I think I know what you’re going to say, but what match do you think you should be in?
Hangman Adam Page: Like I said, I’m not going to tell you my thoughts. I don’t want to make that clear to you or anyone else. I don’t see how that benefits me in any way whatsoever. And actually, I did want to ask you how the hell you got my phone number, because I had to change it. Did Jeff give you this number?
Paste: Yeah, I got it from Jeff. He wanted me to throw you off your game before the big pay-per-view this weekend. Thanks for talking, actually, I’ve been trying to track you down for an interview for years now.
So what does it mean to wrestle in front of a crowd as big as the one at All In? How does that impact your performance?
Hangman Adam Page: Well, I can tell you, last year was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, crowd in the history of professional wrestling. As far as I know. I don’t know much, so I might be wrong as hell, but that’s my understanding of it, and that is in itself a hell of an accolade, something I could tell my grandkids about one day, I hope. But when I’m in the ring, I really don’t have much eyes or ears for people in the stands. I have lot more important things on my mind, and I can’t say whether or I’m wrestling or not at All In, but I’m not going to give a damn if it’s four people, 40,000 or 400,000 in the stands. I really, truly don’t care.
Paste: So you and Swerve Strickland, the current AEW champion, have had this heated blood feud for over a year. It’s become one of the major defining rivalries in AEW, and has really changed how the fans respond to both of you. Personally, what has that meant to you as a wrestler?
Hangman Adam Page: Are you a psychologist? Is that what this is, are you somebody… Did my wife give you this number? What’s going on here? I don’t want to hear your thoughts, I don’t want to hear your musings on on it. This piece of shit found my home, broke into my home while my wife and son were inside. Has that ever happened to you? Does that ever happen to anyone you know?
Paste: I don’t think so. I would hope not.
Hangman Adam Page: You would know if it did. You would know if that happened to you. You would know if it happened to someone that you know, because it would have changed them. It would change them forever. We stayed there for months and months and months, and we tried so hard to make it work, and we couldn’t stay in the home that we brought our child home to for the first time. It was our first house we bought together. We couldn’t stay. We couldn’t stay because, because of what [Swerve Strickland] had done, because the memories of it, the nightmares of it, that every time you walk around a corner at night, you expect him to be there, every bump, every sound we heard, not just for me, not just my wife, [voice breaking] for my kid. We had to leave it, and I’m not going to tell you, obviously, where we went. It might have been Albuquerque, it might have been Boston, it might have been Philly, it could have been Texas, it might be Canada. I may be living in London, for all you know, and for anyone who will ever know about me, for as long as I’m in wrestling, no one will ever know a single extra thing about me, about my personal life. I’ll never share a bit of it because of what was taken from me. I intend for that to never happen again.
Paste: Wow. That’s intense. What do you think could settle this… I mean, do you think there’s any way to settle this beef with Swerve?
Hangman Adam Page: Well, he has something that he should have never gotten in the first place [the AEW World Championship]. I’ve made it my mission that after he did what he did, that he would never hold it, because I always felt that the AEW World Championship was something that was earned, not just through your hard work and winning your matches, but it was something, I don’t know, cosmic about being right, doing the right thing. I thought, I thought there was some kind of inherent… I can’t even phrase it. I just never thought that the most important thing in my career to me, one of the most important things in my life, I never thought that it in itself could betray me like this, and I set out to make it my mission that he would never hold it, because someone who had done what he had done should never be allowed to hold that above their head to say that they are the best, because he’s not, he’s the worst of humanity. But I was suspended. I was gone for four months. I had to sit at home. I had to hear about it. I had to see it. I had to see him win it. I had to see him carry it around. I had to see the people cheer him when he came out with it. And it was, I don’t know, it was just impossible. It was impossible. Something that should have been impossible. He should never have won it. He shouldn’t have it today. He shouldn’t have it tomorrow. It should be mine. If it were mine, I would do everything that I could to erase his name from history of all wrestling from this planet. What would “settle it” would be that, for me to erase him from history altogether, to let his name disappear into the wind and let him be nothing, nothing to anyone else. To solve it would be for him to drop to his knees in front of me and beg for my mercy. On his knees, begging for my mercy. I would never give it, but he should beg for it.
Paste: Again, wow, intense. That makes this next question maybe something I should already know the answer to. But throughout its history pro wrestling has made strange bedfellows out of so many heated rivals. People who have despised each other wind up fighting on the same side, with a sort of grudging respect for each other. Is there any world in which you could see you ever having that kind of respect for Swerve?
Hangman Adam Page: You have lost your fucking mind.
Paste: Cool. Speaking of the title, it’s been a little over two years since you lost it. Looking back on your title reign, how do you feel about it today, and what do you wish you could accomplish that you weren’t able to?
Hangman Adam Page: It was the crowning achievement of my career, one of the crowning achievements of my life. And the night that I won it, I said that. I told myself a lot of lies on the way to earning it. I told myself that I wasn’t good enough, that I would never have it. Those all turned out to be lies. I wanted to tell myself one last lie, and that lie would be that I would hold it until the day that I died. And I wish, looking back, that that wouldn’t have been a lie. I wish that would have been the truth.
Paste: So would regaining the title help put closure to something for you beyond just your hatred for Swerve?
Hangman Adam Page: Every day since I lost that championship, it has strayed further from what I thought it should mean, and it could be no further from what I thought it should mean than it is right now.
Paste: If Brian Danielson beats Swerve for the championship at All In this weekend, do you think he could restore some of what you had hoped the title would mean? I mean, he’s a fantastic wrestler, maybe the best ever, and I know he took you to the limit when you were champ, but you came out on top.
Hangman Adam Page: He is a fantastic wrestler. He’s one of the best to have ever lived, and admittedly, he doesn’t have long left, and he’s okay with the idea of this being it. I just want to draw a stark contrast to maybe how he feels about that championship and how I feel about it. I’m not okay never holding it again. I’m not okay with it in the hands of the person that it’s in. I would not be okay walking away from this in the state that things are in right now. And if that’s how [Danielson] feels about it, about the championship, about the World champion, I can’t say that I have any respect at all for that.
Paste: Your career has also been defined by your relationship with the Elite. How do you feel about their recent behavior and their current direction, and how do you fit into that at this point?
Hangman Adam Page: Had it not been for them, I would have never been suspended. They could have fought that. I stuck up for them. So many times they stuck up for me too, but this last time they could have stuck up for me and I would have not been suspended. [Swerve] would have never won the World championship and right now, to me, that is unforgivable. I don’t know that it can be forgiven. But I’m not really worried about [the Elite] right now.
Paste: You’re often called the “main character” of AEW by fans online. How do you feel about that?
Hangman Adam Page: I think when people watch AEW, it’s not up to me, it’s not up to any one wrestler, it’s not up to any one person to determine the feelings that a viewer takes away from watching it. And if there are people that feel that way, whether it’s one or 1000, I don’t know. I feel that, in my career, I have very much tried to put myself out there. And as much as I could feel that I could afford to, maybe I created some kind of a connection, especially in the beginning of AEW, with certain fans, you know. I don’t know. And if they are with me on this ride that I am on now, then I do appreciate it. But unless they’re willing to attack [Swerve] in the parking lot, unless they’re willing to call out what he did for what it is, and not acknowledge him at all as a champion, then I don’t want their support.
Paste: Okay. So in the past, Paste, when we were in print, we were primarily a music magazine. Now, we cover everything, but music is still the bulk of our identity. I know in the past you’ve mentioned that you use “Page” as your last name because of Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin. What have you been listening to lately?
Hangman Adam Page: Chappell Roan is great. She blew up, very happy about that. There’s a guy named Nick Shoulders who I like, tone and content overall. Love his stuff. I’ve always been an Orville Peck fan. Dale Hollow. But lately it’s Nick Shoulders.
Paste: Yeah, that’s a good lineup there. And not necessarily stuff that people would generally assume a pro wrestler would be into.
Final question. You were a journalism major and a journalism teacher before going full time as a wrestler. How do you feel about the current state of wrestling journalism?
Hangman Adam Page: Well, you sure as shit shouldn’t have gotten my phone number without my permission from Jeff and called me and asked me questions. I wouldn’t have done that, and I would have told my high school kids not to do that. So that’s about as good of an answer as I can give you about the state of that.
