Hangman Adam Page proposed the stipulation that he can never again challenge for the AEW World Championship, Tony Khan revealed, drawing a direct comparison to when Cody Rhodes made a similar request in 2019 at the very beginning of AEW’s existence.
Khan spoke to Q101 Chicago.
That was also something he asked me about, and in that case, knowing what we were doing, I thought that it made a lot of sense for where we were. And a lot of time had passed. We were a very new promotion with not as many stars and not as much television, and a young promotion when Cody asked for that, and that was a major change. And it’s a major change when Hangman asked for it too. There were a lot of positives and I understood to build the unpredictability. But it’s a huge risk and in each case, the wrestler asked me about it, and I had some reservations, but they were different reservations and the company was in a different position each time and it added, in each case, a lot of unpredictability to a huge world title fight on a major pay-per-view. It’s obviously gone very different ways with each of them, and with Hangman, he’s still very much a part of the company. And I look forward to his return, even though it’ll be under a different circumstance.
Khan’s acknowledgment that each situation “went very different ways” is notable: Rhodes eventually left AEW for WWE in 2022, while Page remains with the company despite his title loss to MJF. The stipulation adds a significant wrinkle to Page’s future, forcing any AEW program to be built around something other than the world title.
