25 Worst Wrestling Moments Of 2022

25. Hangman Goes Into Business For Himself

Adam Page is beloved by the fans of All Elite Wrestling. The long-term story that led to his first World Championship reign is one of the best in any era of wrestling, and his rise from the Anxious Millennial Cowboy with a drinking problem to the company's fearless leader was an exemplary example of how to make fans root for and believe in a character.

Up until May 25th 2022, all had seemed rosy in the AEW garden. But with one promo from Hangman, things turned very dark, very quickly. The remark about "defending AEW from you", with the "you" in question being CM Punk, will forever go down as a moment that changed the course of AEW (and WWE, for that matter).

Firing a shot at CM Punk about his stance on workers' rights and painting him as an enemy of the company itself, Page's words didn't make sense at all to the audience who purely watch the product and don't pay attention to backstage gossip. It instead scraped rumors from the dirt sheets to call Punk's backstage behaviour into question at a time when he was the biggest babyface in not only AEW, but wrestling as a whole. This promo set about a chain of events that altered the course of modern wrestling, as CM Punk and AEW's relationship would spiral out of control spectacularly and publicly.