“Hangman” Adam Page doesn’t need to turn into another Cody Rhodes situation for AEW. In fact, this could be the exact opposite.
Page and Rhodes are the two men in company history to lose a match with the stipulation that they can never challenge for the world title again after that defeat.
Doing so crippled Rhodes, who in 2019 was worried about the pressure and repercussions of booking himself to be AEW’s top champion early in the company’s inception.
He instead went on to become the inaugural (and three-time) TNT champion. It eventually left Rhodes with no place to go creatively, and some of his later personal-issue feuds missed the mark, and there were fewer main event-level stars in the company than currently. It led to the AEW audience turning on him and pushing for a heel turn that never came before he exited for WWE shortly after.
