Match Spotlight: Hangman Adam Page Vs. Jon Moxley, AEW All In 2025

Hangman Page will have one of the biggest matches of his career at AEW Revolution 2026 as he will challenge MJF for the AEW Men's World Championship in a Texas Death Match. If Page doesn't leave Los Angeles, California with the title, he has vowed to never challenge for the title again, which is something that has already been proven to last in AEW given what happened to Cody Rhodes. With the Revolution main event being a Texas Death Match, we felt like it would be a great chance to look back at the last time AEW put on one of its most violent stipulation matches, and what a violent match it was.

At the time of writing, the most recent Texas Death Match in AEW was Page's match with Jon Moxley in the main event of AEW All In Texas 2025, with the AEW Men's World Championship being on the line. It was the culmination of a near year long story that started with the Blackpool Combat Club evolving into the Death Riders under Moxley's leadership, Bryan Danielson having his career ended, and the AEW Men's World Championship belt being locked away in a briefcase. Moxley wasn't going to let anyone see the title because he didn't think anyone was good enough to see it, and he patiently waited for someone to reach his level.

While all that was happening, Page settled his score with Swerve Strickland but realized that getting revenge isn't all what it's cracked up to be, and eventually worked his way back into the hearts of fans and into the world title picture. He defeated Will Ospreay in the finals of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament to earn a shot at Moxley in the main event of All In Texas, but wanted to up the stakes by making the match a Texas Death Match. Page has experience in beating Moxley in what has become his signature stipulation, but the Moxley that Page beat at AEW Revolution 2023 is a completely different beast compared to who he would face at Globe Life Field.

We've been getting ourselves excited for Revolution 2026 by rewatching old events, highlighting classic matches, and reliving previous chapters in some of the feuds that will potentially end this Sunday. Now it's time to shine a spotlight on a match related to the event in the form of Hangman Page and Jon Moxley's Texas Death Match for the AEW Men's World Championship at All In Texas 2025.

To start off, I remember watching this match for the first time and being genuinely exhausted because All In Texas, if you include the Zero Hour pre-show, clocked in at just under eight hours long. No wrestling show should ever be eight hours long, what is wrong with you Tony Khan? However, that fact is lost on some people given how All In Texas finished because the main event is one of the finest pay-per-view matches you will see anywhere in the world. If you're not into blood and violence, then I'm sorry to inform you that this match is probably not for you, but if you enjoy a little bit of the old ultraviolence, sit back and relax.

Having recently rewatched the original Texas Death Match from AEW Revolution 2023, it was neat to see some call-backs to that match. Hangman is able to scout the barbed wire chair in the corner but Moxley is able to follow up on that, despite not being able to avoid the Powerbomb on the upright chairs for the second match in a row. The fork spot is reversed as Hangman stabs the champion in the head multiple times as opposed to Moxley taking the fork to Hangman's head the first time around, the Lariat is still as important as ever given Hangman's history with getting a concussion from that move, and much like the first match, the blood basically amps up both guys in the first half rather than making them tired.

Then Wheeler Yuta gets in the ring and the finale of the match begins to build. Marina Shafir has been at ringside the whole time but she wasn't really a factor until the rest of the Death Riders showed up, and as the numbers grow, so does the anticipation. You have Page now going against Moxley, Yuta, Shafir, Claudio Castagnoli and Gabe Kidd, but then the cavalry starts arriving for the good guys. Will Ospreay shows up but is quickly disposed of to sew some more dread in the audience, especially after barbed wire tables and a bed of nails are put to good use. They wouldn't really have Hangman lose would they?

Fortunately not as Darby Allin and Blue Panther's biggest fan Bryan Danielson show up to kick the Death Riders out of the match. Hangman looks to have won, only for The Young Bucks to arrive to swing things back in Moxley's favor, but when the champion gets too confident and wants to show Hangman the belt, Prince Nana handcuffs Shafir to the guardrail, Swerve Strickland takes out The Bucks, throws the chain to Hangman to clear the air between those guys, and Hangman has a clear path. A Buckshot Lariat on the nails, a chain around the neck, and a finish almost identical to Revolution 2023 sees Hangman finally win back the AEW Men's World Championship. The only difference being that Moxley sells the finish with a severe sense of panic that makes everything so much better.

Arguably the most impressive story of 2025 for AEW was the fact that at the start of the year, fans around the world were begging for Jon Moxley to drop the AEW Men's World Championship to literally anyone. Many people struggled to see what the actual point of the Death Riders was, why Moxley was acting in the way he was, and what benefit this whole story would have on the company. By the end of the year, Moxley was being cheered by the live audience, heralded as one of the best wrestlers in the world by those who were watching at home, and once again became a must-see part of AEW's weekly programming. This begs the question of whether the Death Riders storyline actually worked, and in the long-run, I think the answer is yes.

For those who still don't know what the main point of the story was, it's very simple. Moxley came back to the company after All In London 2024 and wasn't happy with the state of AEW, believing it had been overrun by egos, people who don't care for the business as much as him, and that it just wasn't the company that he joined in 2019. Whether you agree with all those points or not, you can't argue that Moxley's mindset was one that a lot of people had about AEW at that time, no matter how many five star matches the company put on its pay-per-views. His solution, take the AEW Men's World Championship, keep it away from everyone until the rest of the roster got to his level, which by that point would put the whole company on a different level as everyone would have to up their game. You don't like Moxley's idea of burning down the company to build it back up in his own image? Do something then, but just know it won't be easy because Moxley is more motivated than ever before.

Obviously it started off slow, and the fact that a lot of top stars didn't really cross paths with the Death Riders didn't help, making the first half of the reign feel a bit inconsequential and comedic as well. But over time, when the likes of Swerve Strickland, Will Ospreay, Hangman Page, Samoa Joe and the rest of The Opps started to get involved, that's when everything started to click. Now the Death Riders felt like a true main event angle with a wide variety of top babyfaces who would all realistically make great choices for ending Moxley's reign. 

The Death Riders story and its payoff was the grand crescendo of AEW's biggest show of the year, and it worked, and not only did it work but the entire company was lifted in the process. 2025 is even talked about in the same breath as the acclaimed 2021 that AEW had, and Moxley, along with his Death Riders are a big reason for that. The knee-jerk reaction world we live in didn't give the story a chance at first, but over time it grew and grew into something that became the center piece of AEW's year, so did the Death Riders story work? Absolutely. Maybe the people who want long-term storytelling in the modern era just need to learn how to be a bit more patient.