Hangman Page & Swerve Strickland start a program that could be great for both

Hangman Page appeared on the Sept. 6 Dynamite to talk about his win on the All Out pre-show, and to put over teachers while talking about the $50,000 donation that led to for the Chicago Public Education Fund.

It wasn’t just a way to remind us Page is a babyface despite what you might read online. Hangman wanted to talk about his future, which brought out Swerve Strickland for the first time since Sting & Darby Allin put him in a coffin at All In.

Two weeks in a coffin gave Strickland some perspective, and he realized that AEW seems to have forgotten about Page, and that Hangman doesn’t seem to care. If Swerve got the same opportunities Page has had, he’d be AEW’s first Black World champion. So Strickland gave the former World champ two options. He could coast out his new contract, and keep fattening up in catering. Or he could cowboy up and fight Swerve to keep his spot.

The former AEW World told Strickland that if he wanted a match, he should go to the back and get one booked. Page was on his way out when Swerve took a shot about his family, which got him some Cowboy Shit. You probably won’t be surprised to learn it was a trap, with Brian Cage emerging to take out his old rival.

Before we get to Page vs. Swerve somewhere down the line, we’ll get Hangman’s latest battle with The Machine as part of this line-up for next Wednesday’s Dynamite:

• Hangman Page vs. Brian Cage

• Toni Storm vs. Dr. Britt Baker vs. Nyla Rose vs. Hikaru Shida (winner challenges Saraya for the Women’s World title at Grand Slam on Sept. 20)

• The AEW World Title Eliminator Tournament finals (more on that here)

• Don Callis unveils his next masterpiece, aka who he & Konosuke Takeshita are targeting next

Back to the nascent Page/Strickland program, it will be good for Hangman to establish himself away from The Elite again. Meat & potatoes everyman promos and strong matches should get him back on track after a weird year-and-a-half. For Swerve, it does seem like this is likely leading to another high profile loss. But until there’s a babyface champion AEW wants him to dethrone, keeping him in prominent feuds with other stars is a pretty sweet spot for a heel. And one should lead to him actually becoming AEW’s first Black World champion sometime in the not too distant future.

Let us know if you agree, and get complete results and coverage of everything on tonight’s All Out fallout edition of Dynamite here.