Folks, it's official: “Hangman” Adam Page versus Jon Moxley is happening. The doctors have signed off on the deal, both performers have agreed to the bout, and when the lights go up in the “Fabulous” Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, on Wednesday, January 11, Page and Mox will go toe-to-toe in the ring, or maybe even outside of the ring, depending on when the opportunity presents itself. Afforded a chance to address the AEW Galaxy ahead of the match, Page put the cherry on top of his forthcoming bout.
“Here they are, these are the papers you needed to clear me for this Wednesday’s Dynamite, right?” Page asked rhetorically. “To be honest, though it’s good news, I was starting really not to care what they said. Because Moxley, if I couldn’t knock you out cold in the ring, I was gonna beat your a– in the parking lot. Because this is not the same sad, mopey ‘Hangman' sob story that you want it to be. This is a story about how Jon Moxley, after three-and-a-half years, finally got his a– handed to him.”
“The difference between what happened to me and what’s going to happen to you is that I want you to remember every single godforsaken second of it. If you can’t, I'll do my d*mndest to make sure that you do. I will put a clip of it on my entrance video, I will buy a billboard in Hollywood and play it on loop. I’ll burn you a copy on VHS and mail it to your house so you can watch it in your dirty basement, you and the rest of the Blackpool Combat Club, getting horny watching MMA. You think that I’m not serious? You think that I’m kidding? If you think that I can’t stand toe to toe with you in the ring this Wednesday, then you’re right. Because the only place I’ll be standing at the end of the night is with my toes on your skull, wiping your blood off my hands to make sure I don’t catch something. Mox, I’ll see you.”
Considering the strength of the previous interaction between Page and Mox on Dynamite, it's clear “The Cowboy” means action against the man who sent him to the hospital and gave him a concussion so bad he forgot his child's name.
It's official: #HangmanAdamPage has been medically cleared to face @JonMoxley at @thekiaforum THIS WEDNESDAY on #AEWDynamite LIVE at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TBS!
It’s #AEWRampage LIVE on TNT! pic.twitter.com/tXALMK59wA
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) January 7, 2023
The feud between Jon Moxley and Adam Page has been heating up in AEW.
On Dynamite, “Hangman” Page was afforded a chance to discuss his feud with Moxley alongside Tony Schiavone and delivered a fiery promo with a now-infamous line about knocking… something into the dirt.
“There is nothing I wanted more than to come out here tonight and tell you I’m good to go, but as of today, I am not medically cleared to compete,” Page said. “And I’ve been told that if I come out here tonight or Friday night and get in a little fight with John, it’s going to set me back one more week, one more week, one more week we just, we keep doing this thing forever, and that’s not what I want. What I want is the same thing Jon Moxley wants, and that’s next week at the Forum, and luckily for me, I do have a date with the doc, if I take a red eye home tonight, I get that last brain scan, and it comes out good, then I will be cleared next week at the Forum. And I don’t care if it’s in this ring, if it’s in catering, if it's on the roof, I will fight Jon Moxley, and Jon, I will knock your d*ck in the dirt.”
Say Moxley's name that many times as just like Beetlejuice, he appeared, only, unlike the Michael Keaton character, he emerged through the crowd to X's version of Wild Thing.
“You know, I’m surprised you even made it here tonight, after everything you’ve been through,” Moxley replied. “Now, I’m getting a little sick of everybody taking something so beautiful and treating it like an unfortunate accident. I’m a little sick of the flowers and sympathy cards in this ongoing, candlelight vigil for ‘Hangman’ Page. When I think about everything I put my body through for years, when I think about wrestling for two months with a torn tricep, getting shipped off to India and Bahrain, nobody has gotten knocked down more times than me in this business. When I think about that place and the pieces of crap I’ve had to eat and the miles and miles of crap I had to crawl through, to see you come out here playing the victim because you got knocked out? ‘Cowboy’ that makes me absolutely sick.”
“You think I’m mad at you because you knocked me out? Is that really what you think?” Page asked. “No, I wish this wasn’t true, but I’ve been knocked out more times than I can count, I’ve been knocked out by enemies, I’ve been knocked out by strangers, I’ve been knocked out by my best friends. It’s an unfortunate part of what we do, and I would never be mad at you for that. But you don’t seem like a guy for nuance, so I’ll put it to you simple, what I’m angry about is how you called me out here, and when I stood face to face with you, you didn’t let me get a word in before you made a joke, before you made a joke. You nearly took my career from me, you nearly changed my life, and you wanted to crack a joke about it, and I think I know why Mox, I think I know why. Because I think in that moment you felt threatened. Because if I know Jon Moxley and he got knocked out, the first thing he’d do is come back for revenge, and that’s not what I was there for that night, but it is what I’m here for now. I’ve had a month to stew on what you said to me, and I’ve had two months to stew on how you knocked me out with a lariat so simple, brutal, and effective, and if anyone knows about that, it’s me, Jon. And I’ve had two in the chamber with your name on it, and you get them at the Forum.”
After biting his tongue long enough, Moxley finally lifted the mic to his lips to try to elicit a response from the stoic Page once and for all.
“The only joke around here, the only joke that I think is funny, is the fact that next time, is gonna be any different,” Mox said. “Your little punk a– doesn’t belong in the ring with me, and next week, I’m going to make sure this time you don’t get back up.”
A common complaint some fans have had with AEW has been Tony Khan's inability to book meaningful storylines without a championship on the line, ergo why the promotion currently has seven different straps, excluding the Ring of Honor brand. This feud, though initially spurned on by a shoot injury, has been booked masterfully ever since and has the sort of heat that more than a few AEW World Championship matches would have killed for. If their match at the Forum goes over well, AEW may be looking at the first great feud of 2023.
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