This ‘Anxious Millennial Cowboy’ Is the Future of Educated Wrestling

ON FEBRUARY 29, 2020, “Hangman” Adam Page, All Elite Wrestling’s blond-maned, hazel-eyed, self-styled “anxious millennial cowboy,” strutted into the ring in front of a packed home at Chicago’s Windtrust Enviornment with his chin held high and his coronary heart jumping out of his chest. Unlit vest resting on his enormous shoulders, the 6-foot, 228-pound Hangman yanked his bandana down to his neck, revealing the kind of furious sport face typically dilapidated by males making an attempt to pass insecurity off as machismo. A fan in the crew threw up a imprint: “HANGMAN, Drink MY beer.”

For the uninitiated, AEW is an upstart official wrestling firm, and Hangman is one amongst its largest stars. He modified into anchoring Revolution, one amongst AEW’s quarterly pay-per-detect smooth exhibits, and situation to part the highlight with the three performers who’d hand-picked him for this 2d: Kenny Omega, his co-AEW World Mark Team Champion, and their opponents, the Younger Bucks (aka Matt and Prick Jackson). What no longer one amongst the ring mates realized on the time modified into that their belief in Page had outpaced his maintain expectations—no longer true on TV but additionally in accurate life.

For followers who had adopted Hangman’s yarn arc in most neatly-liked AEW announces and connected webisodes, Page’s once upbeat-persona had taken an emotional turn in most neatly-liked weeks, swigging beers and lashing out on the chums with whom he now shared the ring. Cherish any of the scripted sport’s richest reviews, it modified into a recital rooted in truth (except for for the ingesting).

“How might perhaps presumably it no longer be?” Page quick Men’s Health all the diagram in which via a most neatly-liked phone call. “I effort you or someone reading to imagine that you just were standing in the ring, and your associate is one amongst the greatest of all time in Kenny Omega. … and (your opponents are), I’d narrate, without question, the greatest imprint team of all time in the Younger Bucks.

“After which you were standing there.”

That match, nearly thirty minutes of swish, acrobatic bodily expression, is held up by followers on Twitter and the licensed r/SquaredCircle subreddit as one amongst the surest examples of wrestling’s singular storytelling functionality. Page and Omega obtained the bout, but most sensible probably after the four males gentle the match as a tool to figure out their simmering beefs: Page vs. the Bucks; Page vs. Omega; Page vs. himself. It modified into a tour de power for Page, who managed to channel his self-flagellation into offense that blurred the strains between yarn and reality.

Simply about two years later, the bout is conception of by many to be the most sensible probably in the firm’s brief historical previous, serving to to burnish Page’s credentials as a celeb who now has extra than 265,000 followers on Twitter and 176,000 on Instagram, and whose “Anxious Millennial Cowboy” T-shirt is regularly considered on followers in the crew. Some think he’s leisurely for an AEW World Championship reign. Nonetheless as someone grappling with apprehension or an inferiority complex knows all too successfully, affirming your mental successfully being takes work. So as an different of settling for the tidy ending to the yarn rapidly after the Revolution tournament, Page has labored alongside AEW brass so as to add extra chapters to make a extra human yarn, sending his Hangman persona on a wander that resulted in months of public struggle.

Hangman’s maintain profession will attain one other crescendo this weekend when he challenges Omega for the AEW World Championship on the Corpulent Equipment pay-per-detect tournament in Minneapolis. For Page, it feels adore a 2d to part that mighty of the inspiration for the anxious a part of his millennial cowboy came from deeper inner of him than someone expected.

His toughest opponent has at all times been himself.

AEW, THE BRAINCHILD of billionaire Tony Khan, launched in early 2019 with the mission of offering an different to the feeble-guard WWE, combining unique age, high-flying wrestling with rich storytelling. In Omega, the Bucks and fellow grappler Cody Rhodes (collectively is named the Elite), who on wrestling’s self sustaining scene had generated an unparalleled buzz for non-WWE performers, Khan saw four doable cornerstones. The foursome of rising stars had earned a cult following, and no longer true thanks to their in-ring theatrics for promotions adore Contemporary Japan Educated Wrestling (NJPW) and Ring of Honor (ROH).

Of their licensed YouTube sequence, Being the Elite, which now has 507,000 subscribers, the wrestlers documented life on the toll road in goofy, semi-scripted skits and over-the-high storylines that usually trickled into the promotions for which they labored. Page modified into introduced as somewhat persona first and most valuable put, with his rising prominence in the sequence coinciding with his rising in-ring status.

Khan had co-invested alongside his father Shahid, an immigrant from Pakistan grew to change into an automobile manufacturing magnate (they also co-proprietor of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham FC), and quick christened Omega, the Bucks and Rhodes govt vice presidents. This day, the serene fledgling, non-publicly traded neighborhood has built a promotion that appears to operate as an implicit rebuke of WWE, the billion greenback world juggernaut high-tail by billionaire CEO Vince McMahon. Rather than offering staid, family-pleasant and cartoonish caricatures of masculinity, AEW strives to be spontaneous, edgy and, most severely, loyal.

“A large a part of AEW,” Khan acknowledged, “is to make the characters, the wrestlers (feel adore) accurate of us.”

Whereas AEW has added extra star energy with ex-WWE Champions CM Punk and Bryan Danielson becoming a member of its roster in most neatly-liked months, AEW executives also think that the league’s extra emotionally resonant and mental successfully being centered reviews will encourage the next technology of followers.

“For years wrestlers were most sensible probably considered as increased than life, gleaming superhero kinds. No one ever in truth explored the premise of a wrestler being adore a protracted-established particular person, struggling with on daily basis emotions,” acknowledged Matt Jackson, one amongst the firm’s four govt vice presidents. “It’s valuable to possess sensitive, vulnerable characters who impart that human side because of extra of us searching at can show to an particular particular person adore that.”

That’s the put Page suits in. Within the 20 months for the reason that Revolution imprint match, his persona has taken on extra depth with each passing week of Dynamite, the two-hour AEW impart that airs Wednesdays on TNT. The story arc is long-established but without sing relatable: Feeling that he didn’t measure up to Omega and the Bucks, the anxious cowboy grew to change into extra and extra reclusive and brooding, with the friendship exploding when Hangman fee the Bucks an opportunity for a imprint championship rematch, dishonest on behalf of their opponents.

In retaliation, Omega and the Bucks theatrically dropped him from their on-digicam chums neighborhood, rendering Hangman—as scripted as a minimum—a lone wolf in a world the put the beautiful allies can make the total disagreement in a wrestler’s success. At first put, he wallowed in self-hatred, finding solace in beer and whiskey while changing into extra publicly unhinged. Then, with the abet of some unique chums, he regained his self belief and his in-ring mojo, leading to Saturday’s showdown with Omega.

PAGE (REAL NAME Stephen Woltz), 30, speaks with the cramped inflection of his native Virgilina, Va., a town of 154, in line with the 2010 U.S. census, positioned on the Virginia-North Carolina border. He grew up on a 20-acre farm serving to his “pa” elevate purple meat cattle in the wintry weather and develop tobacco in the summer season. When his classmates went to camp, he’d upward push at 6 a.m. and start riding a tractor. In July (or “joo-lie” as Page announces it), he’d hunker down in the realm and high tobacco himself, retiring for the day with his palms lined in waxy pulp.

“I come from a straightforward situation. Laborious work, but easy, farm life,” Page acknowledged. “There’s one thing wonderful about the truth in that. That you just upward push up. You work from 6 to 6. You articulate your supper. You recede to mattress. You cessation it again. And that’s how you make it.”

Then he repeats himself: “There’s one thing very great in the truth of that.”

In a 30-minute dialog with Men’s Health in early November, 5 days earlier than his showdown with Omega, Page gentle the observe “truth” 12 cases. He spoke, mighty adore he does on television, with an earnest lilt, his dispute rising and falling for emphasis. He’s a man committed to living authentically, including in his art.

“I wouldn’t even narrate [the story] has borrowed from my accurate life, as mighty because it is miles [real life],” Page acknowledged. “Each and every step of the trend, I’d inquire myself, ‘How cessation I feel about this beautiful now?’ And I’d true present the truth.”

Page didn’t in truth match in in high college, he acknowledged, and as an different chanced on his of us at native wrestling exhibits, a “uncommon world of 40 and 50 year-feeble rotund feeble males beating each other up in front of 20 of us in an armory.” He started backyard wrestling with chums on his trampoline, spherical which his other folks built a wood frame. Terry Lambert, a local self sustaining wrestler who carried out below the title Justin Flash, and who modified into relationship Page’s cousin, taught him some fundamentals and took him on the toll road.

Soon Page modified into making exhibits on the North Carolina self sustaining scene, persevering with to hone his abilities on weekends as he attended Virginia Tech — he graduated in 2011 after two years—after which while working as a journalism and graphic dangle teacher at his native Halifax County Excessive College. In Could presumably well well moreover 2016, after Page joined the Bullet Club, the villainous NJPW mega-get of which Omega and the Bucks were individuals, he ultimately quit instructing.

It modified into then, as Page’s profession began to articulate off, that he began to feel the insecurities that would play out on television. He modified into grateful Omega and the Bucks had taken him below their waft, but one thing felt off.

“I modified into the particular person that modified into the closing to affix the Bullet Club—on the home impart that wasn’t even on TV,” Page acknowledged. “I modified into the particular person that modified into getting beat in all these multi-man suits in Contemporary Japan. I modified into the particular person that didn’t even possess a winning sage in (Contemporary Japan’s G1 Climax match).

“It feels adore a recent component in wrestling to be that beautiful about how you feel in that agonize. Nonetheless what other truth might perhaps presumably there be than to feel hideous in this neighborhood?”

When made mindful about Page’s comments about feeling adore he didn’t measure up, the Jacksons, his opponents at Revolution, were taken aback.

“That is fundamentally the predominant I’ve heard of that,” Matt Jackson acknowledged. “When we met Hangman all these years ago, he modified into in truth true a brand unique, unknown timid kid hiding below a baseball cap at ROH. Prick, Kenny and myself were already exquisite successfully known, successfully-traveled, established wrestlers. I’m in a position to glimpse these fashioned emotions he can also’ve had when he first and most valuable put met us, be one thing tricky to shake off. It goes to be a small imposter’s syndrome, which I’d admire to impart him goes away, but by skills, I don’t think it ever does. I hope he sometime can look for abet from the initiating of our friendship and realize we were never competing, or sizing him up. We were welcoming him in to be one amongst us.”

“He’s never in my conception quick Matt and I that,” Prick Jackson acknowledged. “I feel adore he’s loopy to think that diagram because of he’s one amongst the appropriate in the arena. I feel adore the followers think the identical diagram about him. He’s change into a principal particular person.”

PAGE WAS POSITIONED as a doable leading man from the firm’s onset, but it wasn’t except his persona tasted defeat—six months earlier than Revolution —that his saga first developed the extra or much less nuance that’s helped to distinguish AEW from WWE. On August 31, 2019, in the most valuable tournament of the All Out PPV, Page modified into pinned by Chris Jericho in the predominant-ever AEW Championship match, failing to make beautiful on some traditional wrestling smack discuss: He’d guaranteed that he’s going to be the promotion’s inaugural champion. That loss trigger off a crisis of self belief in Hangman that Page says mirrored how he’s typically felt in accurate life.

Hangman’s space first took a darker set off the Jan. 1, 2020 episode of Dynamite, about eight weeks earlier than the Revolution imprint match, when Omega and the Bucks wrestled PAC, Ray Fenix and Penta El Zero Miedo. When Page joined the commentary team for the match, as is frequent observe for wrestlers when chums or foes are engaged in fight, it modified into obvious that the Hangman’s level of interest had shifted. He sipped on whiskey your complete match, and after the Elite obtained, the cowboy refused to possess an even time with them in the ring.

“In accurate life, you wouldn’t acknowledge up front to your mates, face to face, that you just feel that you just don’t enjoy their sneakers,” Page acknowledged. “It’s also possible to high-tail from the friendship. It’s also possible to high-tail from the accountability. Nonetheless acknowledging your maintain shortcomings is no longer easy, and most of us wouldn’t cessation it.”

With each passing week, as Hangman’s self-self belief slipped, he lashed out extra and extra. He modified into typically considered on TV with out a drink. On screen, that alcohol consumption grew to change into a image of his apprehension and somewhat literally brought him nearer to followers, who handed him beers to chug following victories (earlier than the coronavirus, as a minimum). The extra severe he behaved, the louder followers chanted his bewitch phrase — “Cowboy shit! Cowboy shit!”—Page’s much less G-rated model of Cena’s “It’s also possible to’t glimpse me.”

If Page, with his bandana and his western-themed entrance tune, modified into already a plausible “cowboy,” the stress ingesting modified into the realization of the “anxious millennial” component of his persona. The anxious part’s accurate for him in my conception, too.

“Anyone in this age differ understands, no longer true the outside-stage apprehension, day-to-day, but increased anxieties about the trend that our world works spherical us, the trend that our world is perhaps initiating to fail us, and that we’re no longer rising to the bother,” acknowledged Page, whose legend amongst the devoted modified into bolstered by a Twitter investigation that chanced on he’d made a dozen exiguous donations to Bernie Sanders’ 2020 Presidential campaign (including one for $4.20) below his accurate title, per FEC files. “I suspect that our technology is terribly conversant in each these forms of apprehension, indubitably myself incorporated.”

The 2d that Hangman modified into ultimately kicked out of his fashioned brotherhood, the Elite, occurred in August 2020 after months of teases, each on Dynamite and on Being the Elite. No longer long afterwards he and Omega misplaced the imprint titles, after which Omega beat Page to originate an AEW World Championship opportunity. Omega dethroned then-champion Jon Moxley, and he and the Bucks, previously the firm’s high beautiful guys, grew to change into heel.

As his dilapidated chums dominated the firm—the Jacksons later obtained the imprint titles—the cowboy continued to acquire refuge in the bottle. Then, in his darkest hour, he chanced on inspiration in an no longer seemingly supply: the Darkish Speak, an despicable-cult-grew to change into-sentimental-well-liked after the tragic passing of Jon Huber, who carried out its fictional lead Mr. Brodie Lee on screen. (Huber died from a non-COVID-19 lung sing on December 26, 2020 on the age 41.)

In a pointedly emotional segment, the Darkish Speak guys quick Hangman they serene believed in him, and that he can possess to once extra pursue the AEW Championship. Followers urged the cowboy on too—including one younger supporter named Nolie whose video of encouragement blew up on Wrestling Twitter—and ultimately he chanced on his self belief, winning a seven-man ladder match Oct. 6 to originate the championship opportunity after getting again from paternity recede. The most neatly-liked comeback has meant mighty extra for the particular person in the abet of the persona, who had never publicly disclosed the yarn arc modified into basically basically based in truth.

“I’ve come to phrases with how I’ve felt, and I suspect most sensible probably then cessation you start to feel in a different way about the dynamic,” Page acknowledged of his accurate-life emotions toward Omega and the Bucks. “There’s no sum of cash you pays for remedy adore this, to listen to thousands of of us clamoring for you.”

In most neatly-liked weeks, AEW has continued to incorporate sensitive subjects into announces. Eddie Kingston, a disagreeable-mouthed brawler from true outside Contemporary York Metropolis, mighty he takes Zoloft for despair. And in early November, the day after it modified into announced Moxley had entered an inpatient alcohol remedy program, the famously straight-edge Punk known as on the Independence, Mo., crowd to chant Moxley’s title, commending the dilapidated champion for in the hunt for abet.

Page thinks the values of the firm possess created an openness that helps performers too. “Ten, 20 years ago, you might perhaps presumably presumably never stroll some distance from a high location, for any reason,” he says about Moxley going into rehab. “You might perhaps presumably let your life collapse spherical you earlier than you walked some distance from that high location. Realizing AEW is a obvious extra or much less situation, a obvious atmosphere, I suspect has helped of us be extra beautiful with what they need of their lives.”

ON A RECENT EPISODE of Dynamite, in an evident prelude to this weekend’s mega match, Page swaggered to the ring for an interview with announcer Tony Schiavone, grinning as the crew sang “Cowboy shit! Cowboy shit!” He wore brown cowboy boots, tight blue jeans and a white barren region-themed button down peppered with cacti. He did no longer elevate a drink.

At Schiavone’s prompting, Page touched on the events of the previous two years: shedding to Jericho; shedding his chums; shedding himself. By it all, Page acknowledged, he realized one thing valuable. Whereas you occur to crumple, you should mud your self off and receive abet on the horse. That, he insisted, is the which implies of “cowboy shit.” He pivoted to the championship bout.

“I feel adore you all serene think in me,” Page acknowledged, his eyes scanning the crew. “And for the predominant time in my life, I cessation, too.”

His lips curled into a at ease smile. This time, Page stopped wanting guaranteeing victory, but he promised he would give followers his blood, sweat and tears. And one thing else: “I might give you COWBOY SHIT!”

He dropped the mic, pointed to the sky and made one closing lap spherical the ring. “Cowboy shit! Cowboy shit!” the crew chanted, and Stephen Woltz closed his eyes, took a deep breath and lived his truth.

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