Hangman Adam Page Recalls Once Being Looked At By WWE
Hangman Adam Page was on the a recent episode of the AEW Unrestricted podcast where he talked about his early wrestling career as well as where he got the name "Hangman". Page was a backyard wrestling, and he revealed how he also got the name "Adam Page".
"Oh god. Well, me and my buddy, Adam, it was typically just us," Page explained. "We had some other friends kind of cycle in and out for a few shows, but it's typically us. So there might be three matches. The first would be me vs. him. The second match would be both of us in masks, and the third match would be both of us getting different masks and costumes. I was a superhero like Hurricane Helms. My name is Kid Kryptonite. I was also Blade. I was into the dark arts, and then I was just me as a third character. I think those probably were my only three that I can remember.
"At this point, it's not really the thing to consider anymore, but I guess when I was getting into pro wrestling, when I was in high school, I needed a different name. So I just took a lot of you know, people's last names and first names and just put together a long list of just jumbled up names that really meant nothing. They were just made up names, and that was the one I picked was 'Adam Page.' It was his first name and Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, his last name, and literally that was it."
Before the establishment of AEW, Page was reportedly approached by WWE. He revealed that he was looked at by WWE and John Laurinaitis before he went to college.
"I never went to any of the tryout camps," Page said. "It might have been like my first year of college maybe or maybe even the summer before I went to college, I guess I was 17, there was a guy somewhere in Western North Carolina who apparently owned the trademark or copyright to NXT before they started NXT. This is the story that I understand.
"So in a trade for that copyright or trademark or whatever it is, they sent it might have been Johnny Ace I think – down to his place to have him look at people for the day, and he talked. And he did genuinely watch some of these matches. So that was my like first contact with them, and then I got put into their big database of local guys, a lot of like the little local extra stuff, but I never really had a proper tryout I guess."
Page also said that the year after, he went for a Ring of Honor tryout. He said that Michael Elgin was also at the tryout as well.
"Yeah, that was probably the next year that I started doing the camps there," Page recalls. "I think I did two of them. The first one I remember was me, Michael Elgin was also in this camp. We got paired together for like our tryout match. At the second one, I don't really remember as well, but that was like the next year."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit AEW Unrestricted with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.