Joseph and Colette Discuss Jon Moxley vs. Hangman Adam Page

It doesn't happen often enough these days: Joseph and I wrote about the same wrestling match on different platforms this week, specifically the triumphant Texas Death Match between Jon Moxley and Hangman Adam Page from Saturday's All In: Texas. So, naturally, we decided to talk about it. If you missed either of our essays, they can be found here:

Colette: Texas Death Breathes New Life Into Professional Wrestling
Joseph: Jon Moxley, Hangman Page, and promises made.

If you're a regular around these parts, you'll recognize the BIG EGG MASTERLIST format. If not, welcome. The MASTERLIST is a regular feature of BIG EGG, in which Joseph and I try to come to some agreement as to where each match we cover falls on a ranked list, from first to worst. There are currently 67 MASTERLIST chats, covering some massive highs (Negro Casas vs. El Hijo Del Santo, our current #1), and some crushing lows (Triple H vs. The Undertaker, our current #67). There are also 134 full-length essays about those matches, and plenty of bonus content beyond our mainline BIG EGG material.

THE OFFICIAL BIG EGG MASTERLIST

EVERY BIG EGG MATCH RANKED.

BIG EGGColette Arrand

A lot of the response to both of these pieces has been of the "I wish there was more writing about wrestling like this" variety, and there is, right here on BIG EGG! This is a free, user supported site — no ads, no spam, no misleading headlines about current events: just two critics going deep on the great sport of professional wrestling. Subscribing is free, and we're supported by paying subscribers. This particular format is usually behind that paywall — if you like it, give the rest a try.

Colette Arrand
Usually posts in the BIG EGG MASTERLIST style are a negotiation between the two of us to figure out what the two of us found particularly interesting about a match, our experience of it prior to watching it for the blog, and where we rank it against the rest of the matches we've watched together. We're stepping outside of that a bit, as we both wound up writing about Saturday's Hangman Page vs. Jon Moxley Texas Death Match — you for your website, me for VGBees — and were both blown away by it.

I think we can start where we usually start, which is foregrounding what we knew going in. I think that's important, at least so far as my opinion of the match is concerned, because I came to it completely cold. Hype for current wrestling doesn't reach me on Bluesky the way it did on Twitter, so while there were rumblings that AEW was on the comeback trail, I was on the outside and not looking in until Saturday. I missed a lot: Grand Slam Mexico, Grand Slam Australia, a Dynamite at the concert venue my high school graduation was held at, milestone episodes — my relationship to AEW was pretty similar to where I was with WWE on the occasions where I stopped watching it: bits and pieces came to my attention, but I didn't even know you were calling the angle "Mox FC" until yesterday. Watching the match, at the risk of hyperbolizing or making me sound like a bandwagon dilettante, felt like the rediscovering fire. How was it with additional context?

Joseph Montecillo
I think it's worth pointing out that I'm also coming in at something of a renewed interest. Modern wrestling took a real backseat for me over 3 months or so starting in February, and not entirely due to what was being put out there. I was working on personal projects and prioritizing a lot of historical footage and I just didn't really care to keep up with a lot of modern stuff in real time. The timing of the AEW Arena Mexico shows lined up with my workload freeing up so I was able to come in to see Hangman cut his promo in Spanish, and the great last few Death Riders tags that lead into this bout. Everything about the go home angle on Dynamite was so, so easy to buy into: Mox running at every turn from Hangman, the Death Riders needing numbers and a ringside table to get the win, and the denial of Hangman nailing the Buckshot all leading us to All In. Just simple ass pro wrestling that made even a staunch Mox defender like myself say, "It's fucking time."

Also shoutout to the real Mox FC people out on Twitter, I'm just co-opting their term here.

Colette Arrand
I said this in my piece, but one of the things I admire so much about this match, coming in from the cold, is how brave it was to see things through to this conclusion. That's true on two fronts: making the call to switch the title to Hangman, and not bailing on Mox's reign when things seemed particularly bleak. Massive, paradigm shifting (to borrow the phrase) angles are truly rare in professional wrestling. Bodies break, people change their minds, this or that piece doesn't connect, someone blinks. Moxley's been at that crossroads before, when The Shield were at their zenith and broken up for the sake of inserting Seth Rollins into a tepid reboot of The Corporation. AEW's been there, too — I think the now much-debated call to switch the belt from Hangman to Punk was the right one, but I'm thinking of things like MJF's The Firm/The Devil angle, lots of Chris Jericho stuff, Cody Rhodes' various big ideas, and so on.

A lot of those misses don't feel as large as they did before Punk dipped out for a round-trip ticket to Saudi Arabia, but it took guts to cut off Bryan Danielson's title reign as violently as Mox and company did, more guts to stick with it when it seemed like the angle was peeling viewers off of Dynamite while all anyone could talk about was The Ratings, and then, paradoxically, even more guts to put the title back on Hangman right as the word on Moxley's reign was that it was finally living up to the promise the angle initially showed. Trevor Dame described the match as something of the final brick falling into place that announced AEW's return to creative prominence, and I think that's pretty apt. What's wild is how few people seemed to see the vision coming together, how parallel a lot of its machinations were — AEW is sometimes overly intricate in its storytelling, but a lot of this was done in the dark.

Joseph Montecillo
To their credit, I think people understood how all these things were meant to work in the end, but they just didn't like the matches and angles. And hey, I'm not out here trying to see a bland four-way or a 25 minute plus Cope match either, but wow the way that somehow got turned into "Mox sucks now" still sort of baffles me. He's not free of blame, but basically any time they set him up for success in this reign (Dragon, Darby, Cassidy, Hangman), it was excellent.

I'm curious what was it about this match that even called to you. I know modern wrestling's been a struggle so why now, why here?

Colette Arrand
Two words, Joseph: Triple H.

I wish I was kidding, but it really was spite. The same way I decided to start writing about Nitro because Simon and Schuster published a book about how important a WCW angle was and used a WWE-era promo photo of the nWo on the cover, I decided to give AEW another shot because of how badly its opposition wanted the show to fail. Between SmackDown, an NXT show that I'm sure people saw, the retirement match of Bill Goldberg, and the second coming of WWE Evolution without its being naked cover for their operations in Saudi Arabia, Triple H brought every gun he had to bear on AEW, — his father-in-law wasn't even there to spite him. I love wrestling as much as I hate the Pontiff of Pain. Even if the match was a half measure, even if it sucked, watching it felt like the least I could do for this great sport. By the time I got home from vacation, the hype was astronomical — worryingly so, except that it met and exceeded said hype, warts and all.

Joseph Montecillo
We've talked a lot on the EGG about how clean transitions of power on a kayfabe level just don't really happen in wrestling for a lot of the reasons you already talked about. This 100% has the potential to be that. A lot of that will be determined by the follow up, but there's very little about it that doesn't set up Hangman for just uproarious success if the machine just continues functioning to back him.

Colette Arrand
There's no reason it shouldn't, either. I think the most surprising result of All In was that Swerve and Ospreay beat the Young Bucks when their end of the stipulation was "we won't challenge for the World Title for a year," which for the freaks who remember that Ospreay's vow was to win the AEW Championship at Wembley (which I guess is me — I'm "freaks") was one hell of a red herring. I don't like MJF and am not entirely looking forward to reacquainting myself with his tired-ass schtick, but if he is Hangman's first challenger, it's a smart call: a fellow day-one original whose career has revolved around calls to prove his worth, only unlike Page there's never been anything pure or good-hearted about MJF, nothing to redeem. He isn't just running parallel to Page, he is in a lot of ways his opposite, as much of a definitional figure to AEW as the new champion. You have to do it, and luckily there's a lot of support on the undercard for people like me who find themselves holding their nose about it.

Joseph Montecillo
It is somewhat hilarious that AEW is booking this 2025 reign in the exact way Hanger should have been booked in 2023. Lest we forget that the first time Hangman nearly murdered Jon Moxley via chain, MJF was the man on top with the gold, and somehow that did not become a title feud in 2023 at all!

Colette Arrand
I don't know how hot this take is, but Hanger was spared. I forgot all about the MJF/Mox/Regal thing and I won't say that I'm mad about it, but boy am I thrilled that most of the people MJF could have emailed when he was trying to get a WWE developmental deal are no longer on-camera talent. My lack of context is definitely showing here, but I really don't see him as being remotely on Page's level at this moment — after the middling title programs he had, he definitely has something to prove. Maybe there's something there.

But enough about that guy — I wanna talk about Sting. Incredible that, while Papa H was fantasy booking the mirror universe version of a farewell to WCW, Bryan Danielson and Darby Allin ran two Sting tropes back to back, that Hangman got to do the Summer of Lex conquering of the bad guy and his gang but not as a tease for something bigger. If Tony Schiavone had declared it the greatest night in the history of the sport, it would have been hard to argue — this was a towering masterpiece of mainstream American wrestling, cloaked in the blood and guts of territory-era and death match violence. It wasn't that long ago that I wrote that Sting's retirement felt like the closing of a book, a tribute to a wrestler and an era that was unlikely to be topped in my lifetime. I never anticipated that AEW would, in fact, top it by asking the bold question, "What if the Stinger won one when it really counted?"

The future is the future and I'm sure it will delight and disappoint in ways we can and cannot anticipate, and maybe this run will be enough for me to finally put the ghost of my childhood wrestling disappointments to bed once and for all, but I remember how sad I was when, on the first episode of Thunder, JJ Dillon asked Sting to give him the WCW Championship. All that time spent chasing Hulk Hogan, and our reward was watching Sting throw the belt down like it was trash and say his first words since late '96: "You've got no guts." It isn't just that clean transitions of kayfabe power are rare: it's how violently they're denied. Since Hogan in 1984, who else has not only been given the ball but the full backing of the machine: Austin? The Rock? Cena? That question opens up more if you consider Japan and Mexico, but not much: the same pettiness and impulse to self-sabotage exists in other permutations of wrestling, at every level. It's easy for me to draw lines to WCW because I love WCW, but I could not help but think of another rise we just covered on BIG EGG, Meiko Satomura's, and how much went into not only building her, but establishing the tone of the promotion and the motivations of the villains who wanted to tear it down for the sake of their ego. Did this match call anything like that to mind for you?

Joseph Montecillo
I think it's still hard for me to say given how fresh we are from the moment. The closest parallels coming to mind right now are something like Punk/Cena at MITB 11, and we all know the compromises made after that. I still don't have full blind faith in what's going to happen with Hangman moving forward but the general uptick in public reception to AEW TV, and the fact their TV just seems healthier on a week to week basis now is very promising though. It also does feel odd to think that Hangman is the definitional choice for AEW moving forward given that his big moment comes from working Mox's match. There's arguments to be made there but as in love as I am with Hangman's title win, how deserved and right it feels, I do also come away from the match thinking, "GOD FUCKING DAMN, JON MOXLEY."

Colette Arrand
That's why he's the ace of the goddamn universe, Joseph. I love the theory that went into this reign, too. Fans used to joke about how Moxley was owed a vacation — he was going to go on one, if memory serves, but had to pick up the pieces when Punk broke his foot. He's taken time off, most notably to get sober, but since his debut it has been Mox more than anybody who has served as the backbone of AEW, the fire in its belly. His reasons for holding the company hostage for nearly a year are grounded in that reality: every other motherfucker in AEW wanted to have fun or fuck around and could because he was there to carry the ball. What if, instead of carrying it, he kept it to himself? What if he could invert the real-life selflessness and genius of his run in AEW and portray it as bitter, prideful selfishness? What if his end game wasn't to rob wrestling blind, but to prove that his philosophy of it was superior?

It's an almost un-American framework for a heel to operate under — even Arn Anderson liked the finer things in life. One reason Page works in this spot is because out of everyone else on that level, maybe only Darby Allin could run Mox's gauntlet better. Page's own story made him the best choice, as his redemption fits in rather nicely with the story that AEW needed redeeming. Right guy at the right time, in there with someone who is building one hell of a case for himself as an all-time great before he even turns 40. There's so much road left for both men. It's incredibly exciting stuff.

Joseph Montecillo
Where does this rank among Moxley's all-time performances for you?

Colette Arrand
In terms of singles matches? If not the tippy-top, then very, very near it. The thing about Moxley that's a minor bummer is that outside of his work in AEW, much of his genius is hemmed in by how his vision of wrestling is perceived by outside forces — Vince McMahon in WWE, NJPW's half-hearted assimilation of hardcore wrestling into the Bushiroad epic because that's what they thought fans in America wanted out of him. There are exceptions to this, obviously: his match against Despy, the way he turned his aura into what might be the definitive Toru Yano match, his FCW match against Regal — all of them are complete expressions of Jon Moxley and what makes him tick. But it's in AEW where he's truly free, a madman working in a promotion that has a budget that can back his vision. That first Texas Death match comes to mind, as does his bloodbath against Yuta, his shock conquest over Punk, that one with Danielson where Regal made them hug it out after the finish. Some day I'll circle back and watch World's End 2023 against Kingston — I loved their first AEW match against each other, but they were doing the work of establishing Eddie back then, which has different stakes.

All of that said, I think that means this one is at the top. He feels dangerous, barking at the fans, screaming about his greatness as Hanger bleeds in the corner. His sell of the chain spot at the end is gritty and brutal, twitching "western about the brutality of the west" style until it's time to tap. He does so emphatically, like it's that or death, and it's a big moment because most people in these AEW death matches choose death, or at least passing out. It is a complete portrait of craven, heartless scumbaggery, and watching him fall apart in the end is beyond satisfying. You?

Joseph Montecillo
I think it's an amazing Moxley performance that's encumbered some by the match's structure, but good lord, the work he puts in here. "Monstrous" has been used a lot to describe him here, and it really is that, a gloriously evil performance. He's not even significantly larger than Hangman in the way he might be against Cassidy, but he just wrestles this with the perfect mix of malice and cowardice. One of the all-timers.

Colette Arrand
Yeah, there's some stuff about the match that I don't like, but none of it's on him. He's a legendary bleeder, and even for him this is an all-timer. The way the blood spurted from his forehead like he just got murked in a Tom Savini movie? You can only go so far in planning for an image like that, but to the extent that one can — getting stabbed in the forehead really, really hard counts as planning the image — he puts his absolute all into it. I can't wait to see the depths he will lower himself to now that he no longer has the championship.

Joseph Montecillo
I think I maybe have his performance against Punk in Chicago over this, and arguably the title win that started this reign might be better as a much. But as a final hurrah for this specific title run, I don't know that you get any better than what Mox delivers here.

This might be right near the top of Hangman's own career too. I keep thinking of the way he eats a chair to the gut like his legs are about to give out under him, how much he's able to get out of the ten counts. What a pro wrestler.

Colette Arrand
The way he scrambles to his feet before the match enters its special guest appearance phase is something else, man. I only knew he was getting up because I watched it on Sunday. Both men have that crowd and the whole of the wrestling world in the palm of their hands for 35 minutes. So much of it is spent in agony that I can excuse the ecstasy for feeling a bit like gorging on candy.

Joseph Montecillo
IF we were to rank this on the MASTERLIST, which we won't, where would it rank for you?

Colette Arrand
Jesus. It's up there, right? There way that thing sprawls out is full of traps, but I think my answer is somewhere between #13 and #16, settling into a block of three matches — L.A. Park vs. Rush, Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk, and Sangre Chicana vs. MS-1 — that are generational displays of hatred.

Joseph Montecillo
Oof, I think we have some distance there. As much as I love it, it does carry the burden of some lesser modern trappings with it. Even excising all the interference (all of which feel necessary if a tad much), I get the distinct impression this could have used some trimming down. In particular with how much and how early they give up the Buckshot Lariat given how well they protected it in the build. I'm down in the 20s area, maybe 22 to overtake Sami/Knoxville.

Colette Arrand
I can see that — there's some recency bias at play here for me, a decided sense that the feeling might just be restored. Were this an actual MASTERLIST discussion you'd probably be able to get me to move the match down to #19 based on how breathtaking I found Meiko Satomura's victory over Aja Kong. On your end, I've got to say: This is better than the Unbreakable three way, at least. Sorry to get up on my high horse about empty promises made by wrestling matches, but we know where the future laid out by Joe, Daniels, and Styles is going, and like a lot of what we've discussed, that future is nowhere near as exciting as it should have been. I'll drop it one slot for every time MJF calls Hangman "bud" in the build to their match in the universe where I actually have to quantify my feelings, ha.

Joseph Montecillo
Oh but the Unbreakable three-way is so much tighter. At so many points, feeling AIRTIGHT even, this marvel of conceptualization and execution where a million fairly complex things get nailed perfectly. I see the gaps here still, even watching it in the moment. The way we spend an interminable amount of time lingering on a downed Will Ospreay (who I've softened on as a fun piece of the TV landscape), the way the Everest selfie just kills momentum for a couple of minutes til Darby gets lowered down. There's holes here that I don't think the TNA lads ever left room for.

Colette Arrand
The TNA lads don't have Bryan Danielson in a Blue Panther mask.

Joseph Montecillo
GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH THE GOAT.

Can't believe I stuck around long enough for Bryan to be in his Yeti-sighting living legend era.

Colette Arrand
Can't believe that I stuck around long enough for his Yeti-sighting living legend era was this and not his run as the co-host of Talking Smack.

Joseph Montecillo
That motherfucker did it twice.

Colette Arrand
So did Mox and Hanger! C'moooooon ... bump it above the Unbreakable Three Way.

Joseph Montecillo
That said, this match struggles to get past the stuff that I think rings a little more timeless. So I think I could sneak it over the Unbreakable three-way but not past the luchadores.

Colette Arrand
Yes. Science! I don't think we'll be relitigating this specific match whenever we get around to doing AEW Month or Blood Month or whatever, but maybe their first Texas Death Match is somewhere in our future. I certainly wouldn't mind.

Joseph Montecillo
We shall see. This doesn't go on the list proper, but keep its memory in mind when you skim through it moving forward.

Colette Arrand
The three big questions of the BIG EGG Masterlist:

1. Is this better than Zayn/Knoxville?
2. Is this better than Funk/Lawler?
3. Is this better than Mox/Hanger?

Joseph Montecillo
What a trio.