‘Hangman’ Adam Page Recalls How Severe His Anxiety Once Was

'Hangman' Adam Page defeated Kenny Omega on November 13, 2021, in the main event of Full Gear to win the AEW World Championship. As a recent guest on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, Page discussed what being champion has felt like, and a regret he has had since he won the title.

"It's great, it's a little surreal. I don't know that it ever will sink in at this point, you know what I mean? It's also a little frustrating because I've worked so hard for so long, I've won this championship and I have not gotten to wrestle a match since I won it. And it's been three or four weeks, and I've been asking for a match with Bryan Danielson since, you know, the Wednesday after the Pay-Per-View. Look, I haven't gotten to wrestle so then, it's kind of like, frustrating as well."

Page obviously has since wrestled Bryan, and currently remains the top guy in AEW. However, Page explains why he feels this was not something that was set in stone, especially considering his positioning before AEW began.

"I wouldn't even talk about, at least, my journey to the AEW World Championship as some kind of 'grand scheme' that was hatched on day 1 or something like that, because it never was. At least to me, it was never that way. When AEW started, and I, you know, realized I was going to be suddenly, like, I was just the guy, like, losing all the Bullet Club multi-man matches. I was, you know, not to say a nobody, but I certainly wasn't like 'the main event guy' who was suddenly going to be main-eventing the first-ever title match in AEW.

"Like. I knew people wouldn't buy it and it didn't matter what I said, it didn't matter what I did in the time between. It was too fast. It was too soon. I knew people might, they would be forgiving, they would go 'oh yeah, okay okay,' but I knew deep down they wouldn't buy it. It felt like I got off on the wrong foot and I wanted to rectify that, and I felt like the only way you (Hangman) can is to be vulnerable and to, you know what I mean, let that loss and disappointment come out."

One of 'Hangman' Adam Page's nicknames is the 'Anxious Millenial Cowboy'. The AEW World Champion spoke on his anxiety and how he feels professional wrestling has helped him deal with it.

"I'm not a conversationalist, I don't know. Anxious maybe, and maybe like... This is a story I've never told. In — I don't even know if middle school, maybe high school age — I had super, super bad social anxiety, like diagnosed, medication social anxiety," Page stated. "But like, I can remember one time sitting at my desk, right, this was like, in the middle of taking a test or something and I could remember my whole body would like, turn flush red. I would start sweating, then I would become aware for, God knows what reason, like no one's looking at me, this is happening to my body. So then, you know it gets like ten times worse, what's going on? Like, my eyes start watering, like I'm just sitting at my desk."

Hangman dove deeper into the fact that wrestling helped him. "I think wrestling helped me get out of that to an extent because, not that like, not that I had like low self-worth or anything like that. But, like, wrestling was always my passion and where I felt comfortable, and what I like doing. Once I was able to do that and see some success in it, being surrounded by like twenty people to two hundred people to two thousand people, twenty thousand, like, as that grew, I think you get more comfortable with that and yourself."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Oral Sessions With Renee Paquette with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.