The Adam Page vs Kenny Omega Storyline Is Among Wrestlings Greatest

Hamish Woodward

Perhaps the best rivalry AEW has ever seen in the multi-year battles between Kenny Omega and Adam Page.

The feud had it all. It saw them as a team, and as foes. It saw emotion, heart break, alcoholism, anxiety and more.

Adam Page pushed his friends away, while Omega kept his close, eliminating anybody that gone in their way.

In a way, Omega was the opposite of Page, but in another way they were the exact same. They both suffered the same emotions, but dealt with those feelings completely differently.

Here is the full story of the rivalry between Adam Page and Kenny Omega.

Kenny Omega vs Adam Page

“Hangman” Adam Page enjoyed a tumultuous relationship with his fellow Elite members in AEW. He felt ignored and let down by his friends, especially the Young Bucks during his time in the group.

Adam Page felt like he let his friends down by losing to Chris Jericho for the AEW Championship, and his friends felt that he abandoned the group and went out on his own.

The Young Bucks attempt on the AEW Tag Team titles left a sour taste in Hangman’s mouth. Hangman Page felt that the Bucks were trying to diminish his success.

He felt that they were trying to take his greatest accomplishment as soon as he’d earned it. He felt overlooked and overshadowed as part of the Elite, as he was the least successful of the members prior to AEW.

The Young Bucks saw Adam Page as ungrateful, not appreciating how the Elite had brought him into their circle of friends. As they said in an interview prior to AEW Revolution 2019, “You were just a jobber in Ring of Honor before we brought you into the Elite”.

They thought that Page was taking advantage of their friendship then leaving them at the first sign of success, and taking their best friend Kenny Omega with him.

“You were just a jobber in Ring of Honor before we brought you into the Elite”.

Omega was stuck in the middle of the feud, trying to make peace between Hangman and the Young Bucks.

He clearly wanted to help the pairs’ friendship to work out, but was frustrated more by Hangman’s part in the break-up. The ending of their win against the Young Bucks shows this. After retaining the Tag Team title, Kenny stays with the Bucks while Hangman leaves alone.

The Tag Team Break-up

Adam Page and Kenny Omega teamed up to become the second ever AEW Tag Team Champions. They beat SCU on the Jericho Cruise to win the titles, which they held for a number of months.

The best match in their reign was the AEW Revolution bout against the Young Bucks. The four men went nearly thirty minutes in an action packed, emotional filled match. Omega and Page won the match, but Page seemed even further distant from the Elite.

This culminated when Page was duped by FTR into thinking he was their friend. They saved him from attacks and drank beer with him, all the while with one eye on his AEW Tag Team Championship.

Page even interfered in a match to stop the Young Bucks winning, so they would not face he and Omega again for the Championships. However, FTR turned on Page, revealing they had been manipulating him all along,

This strained his relationship with Omega, who thus far had been trying to keep the Elite together as friends. Hangman’s actions had been too much, and the pair of them seemed to no longer be on the same page.

This showed in their title defence against FTR at AEW All Out 2020. Hangman Adam Page and Kenny Omega were not on the same page, making mistakes and eventually succumbing to FTR. They lost the tag team championship, and one of the saddest moments in wrestling history happened.

The pair stood in the ring, with Hangman taking the brunt of the offence in the match. Omega is holding a wooden chair, looking set to hit Page and destroy their friendship. However, he throws away the chair, and does something much, much worse.

He looked to Omega for support, to hold him and tell him everything is okay. But it isn’t. Hangman falls into the arms of Omega, but Omega is nowhere to be seen. He sidesteps Page, letting him fall unceremoniously to the floor and back out of consciousness. Omega leaves through the heel tunnel signalling his exit from his friendship with Page.

ver the next year, Hangman Adam Page was recruited by the Dark Order as their newest member. Page rejected their proposal, but kept up his association with the group as he finally accepted them as his new friends. Since the loss of the Elite as his friends, Page was fearful of letting anyone else into his life. He didn’t think he could take anymore pain, so he simply shut himself away. But the Dark Order, inspired by the death of their leader Brodie Lee, turned to making life bright for Adam Page. They wanted to inspire him to become the best wrestler he could be, and to win the AEW Championship.

But they could not. Hangman Page and the Dark Order took on the Elite in a tag team match. It was a five on five, Survivor Series style elimination match. If the Dark Order won, then Hangman Adam Page would receive a AEW Title shot at All Out 2021. One year after he and Omega went their separate ways, it seemed inevitable that the cowboy would win the match and show Omega how good he really was.

But tricky and deception prevailed, as the Elite won the match. Page felt responsible for the loss, despite being the last man standing against Omega and The Young Bucks. He also felt like he let his team down, due to the other stipulation of the match. If the Dark Order won, then they would also receive a title shot, in this case against AEW Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks.

Page went out the next night to apologise to the Dark Order but was ambushed and beaten down by the Elite. He has not been seen since. Page blames himself for letting down his team. Bad things keep happening to the Hangman, and those around him.

He sees himself as a poison that no matter what, will keep infecting those he loves. He feels like he has to leave in order to stop bad things happening. The Dark Order had showed him that his friends still stick with him even in defeat, but he needs to come to that realisation on his own.

He went away for some weeks, missing All Out 2021 due to the birth of his son. He returned on AEW Dynamite as the surprise entrant in a ladder match, to win a shot at Kenny Omega at Full Gear 2021.

Adam Page beat Kenny Omega at Full Gear 2021, winning the AEW Championship and ending their story..for now.

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