Matt Hardy Analyzes "Hangman" Adam Page's AEW Career

Matt Hardy held a recent edition of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, in which he spoke about AEW World Heavyweight Champion "Hangman" Adam Page.

“I know Hangman was a big fan of The Hardy Boyz when he was growing up. Obviously, he’s much younger than I am, but he related to myself and Jeff.”

“He also grew up on a farm. He farmed tobacco much like myself and my brother did. He grew up in a very country, rural environment.”

“The first book that he read, and his favorite wrestling book of all time he just told me, is ‘Exist 2 Inspire’. He said, ‘These guys are like me. They’re from the south. They were farmers. They grew up in tobacco. They’re dad did tobacco like my dad did as well. If these guys can be wrestlers, then I can do it too.’ That’s so cool that it was inspirational and motivational to him.”

Hardy spoke about Hangman's work with The Dark Order.

“I thought Hangman did a really good job. Obviously, he worked very close with Tony (Khan) on that.”

“One thing I want to compliment Adam on is I feel like some people, as professional wrestlers especially, have the Vince (McMahon) mentality. The Vince mentality is to be strong, especially if you’re a babyface. I feel like he was courageous enough to be viewed as being someone who has these self confident issues and to be someone who is anxious. I think it was also so successful because there are so many people in society that feel that way in this day and age. I think it’s a very relatable, real thing.”

“But there’s a lot of pro wrestlers who are big and tough and they’re like, ‘I don’t know. I can’t do too much of that because it might make me look weak.’ I think Adam did a great job of maintaining that. He felt like a misfit, and The Dark Order almost felt like a bunch of misfits as well, so I think that’s why their relationship worked well intermingling with one another, and I also think it gave him something great to play off of.”

Hardy on how much beer Hangman can drink:

“I think Hangman can drink a couple beers, but I don’t think he can drink a huge amount. I feel like when it comes to the whole Cowboy drunk persona, it’s much more of a work. He’s taking care of himself. He wants to be a happy and healthy dad for a long time.”

On the alcoholism storyline with Adam Page in AEW:

“I know something they actively tried to avoid, Tony and Adam, was to have this sad, drunk person who ends up being a loser because of his drinking. They never wanted to get to that."

“I think they always wanted to put the idea out there that he has self doubt issues, and that maybe it did lead to him drinking some, but you never want him to be this sad, pathetic drunk who has this major problem. They were always very careful about how they walked that line, and I think that was very important as well. I think that was a great job of storytelling we did when I thought I was getting him drunk, but he still outsmarted me and he switched it to show that he still has his wits about him.”