AEW Fyter Fest 2020 Takeaways: ‘Hangman’ Page the Next Bret Hart
By Erik Boyer
The biggest takeaways from AEW Fyter Fest 2020.
AEW Fyter Fest 2020 has come and gone, but like any great wrestling event or dramatic performance, some parts of it really stuck with me. When I look at “Hangman” Page, I see the future and a level of stardom not easily attained.
1. Hangman and Omega Make Me Care
Notice I listed Hangman first?
Hangman Page and Kenny Omega have single-handedly – well, double-handedly, I guess – done something for me that hasn’t happened since probably 1993, when I popped in a VHS tape of SummerSlam 1990 when I was eight years old and saw The Hart Foundation defeat Crush and Smash of Demolition in a two out of three falls match for the Tag Team Championship – Bret Hart made me care, just like Hangman Page has me actually caring about tag team wrestling, today. The two even have relatively similar builds, are pretty good looking guys, and the first gimmick suggested to Bret Hart?
A cowboy. He passed, obviously, but the connection is there.
Can’t make this cowboy s–t up!
Wikipedia obviously made me aware of that little tid-bit.
They have the same general no-BS attitude – they just want to be in their own world and dominate – no drama, keep everyone at arm’s length.
Listen, Hangman’s walk-out music has the potential to be as legendary as Hart’s, Flair’s or Undertaker’s – it’s got that opening that gives fans the opportunity to lose their minds in excitement (when fans come back in 2026 and Hangman is a 4x AEW Champion, of course). Over the course of their reign, though, they have had nail-biting, edge-of-seat, Erik Boyer-popping performances, and though all of their opponents deserve some credit in their assistance, Omega and Hangman have consistently brought the goods and made those titles almost as important to me as the AEW World Championship.
Again, I have to point back to the WWF in the early ‘90s to remember a time when a company had so many legitimate tag-teams – Hart Foundation, The Rockers (the start of the legendary Michaels/Hart rivalry), Demolition, Legion of Doom (Road Warriors), The Nasty Boys – the list goes on and on, just like it does in AEW – but, deservedly, at the top of that list remains Kenny Omega and Adam “Hangman” Page (the next Bret Hart, I’m callin’ it).