Adam Page credits Luke Gallows for the Hangman name

Who would have thought that Luke Gallows would have such a pivotal impact on the career of Adam “Hangman” Page when the two men don’t even know each other that well?

Page told the tale of Gallows’ influence on the Hangman name as a recent guest on the AEW Unrestricted podcast hosted by Aubrey Edwards and Tony Schiavone.

Tony Schiavone: Alright, I want to throw another name out at you, because he’s a real good friend of mine. He’s not with our company (AEW) right now. And he is out of his freaking mind. His name is Luke Gallows. What did he have to do with the name Hangman?

Hangman Page: Probably everything? Which is weird because I don’t really know him.

Schiavone: Oh, really?

Hangman: No, I don’t know him that well. I met him one time.

Schiavone: So, you don’t know that he’s out of his mind, because he is. He’s incredible.

Hangman: Oh, I’m sure he is. I could have told you that much.

Aubrey Edwards: Everyone in wrestling is a little crazy.

Hangman: Oh, we’re all psychos. I was thinking about it earlier today how weird this is.

But probably everything to do with the name Hangman. I guess they, him and (Karl) Anderson and AJ (Styles), had just left. And you know, New Japan knew they were bringing in Adam Cole to be in the Bullet Club. And I guess I was suggested as the other person. So, you’re going to have Adam Cole and Adam Page, who both looked kind of similar, had similar wrestling styles. And Adam Cole was main event ROH guy at that time, so I was going to have to do something a little different. That was kind of the suggestion to me from Gedo, you know?

I kind of thought the name Hangman would be cool if I had this noose, like he used to have. Instead of being Gallows, I’ll be Hangman. Me telling you that story was probably as much thought that was put into the whole thing at the time, because I was just so excited to get over there and get the thing going.

With the way Page spells it out, the Hangman story makes sense. Granted, I’m not a follower of NJPW, so I never would have connected those dots. He really picked a winner by choosing Hangman. It is a cool name that perks my ears up. A guy with the name Hangman has to be a badass, right?

Heck, now I’d love to see Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson arrive in AEW as Hangman’s backup should he have a feud with the Elite. As TV-acceptable versions of Sex Ferguson and Machine Gun by Hangman’s side, Gallows and Anderson would get over sky high with the fans. They would raise Hangman’s stock, and he would do the same for them.

Page also discussed why he believes the beer drinking, cowboy shit doing Hangman character connected so well with the crowd. It is all about believing in a story that comes from the heart.

Hangman: Yeah, something’s working. And genuinely, I’ve always felt this way that if you tell a wrestler what to do, you’ll get results. But if you leave a wrestler to his devices, they’re going to sink or they’re going to swim. And a lot of times, I think you can swim a lot better when someone just throws you out there than if they try to teach you how to do it.

So, some of the things earlier in my career, even some of the things I’ve done in AEW, weren’t genuinely my ideas. They weren’t maybe totally from the heart. But I think when I started doing all that stuff, maybe November or December this past year, I knew I had a story I wanted to tell and it came from me.

Every single Wednesday is a fight to make sure that what I’m doing makes sense to me and it feels true to me as a person. Because a lot of things you’d see on our show about my character or on BTE, yes, there is fictionalization, but it is genuinely real. You can’t be me and not feel the way that this character truly feels, and that’s how I truly feel as a person. So, I know I had that story inside of me and I want to get it out. And this is how you get it out. This is how you work through it.

So, fighting every Wednesday to make sure that the things I did or things anyone around me did made sense with this story is what I think makes it good, and the insight that others around can bring into it as well.

Add another wrestler to the list that appreciates the creative freedom offered in AEW. I respect the attention to detail that Page has put in to make sure his story will resonate. Aside from the boozing and ass kicking, I wouldn’t say I relate to the anxious millennial cowboy. But, he is correct in that the story does feel real for the character. That touch of humanity does make me more emotionally invested in the outcome.

Listen to the full podcast (here). It is a quick 45 minutes that goes over Hangman’s life from graduating from Virginia Tech in two years, to teaching high school at the age of 20, to breaking into wrestling, to ROH, to NJPW, and to AEW.

How do you think Hangman’s career would be different as solely Adam Page? What makes you cheer for Hangman? Do you feel the heart in his current AEW story?