14 Ups & 4 Downs For AEW In 2020

3. It's The Small Details...

Hangman Page Legs
AEW

No professional wrestling company has ever rewarded an attentive audience with more small details of artistry than All Elite Wrestling. The base can get fervent, and annoying, yes. Your writer was buried on Twitter for daring to question whether it was a good idea to have Jake Roberts and his comorbidities appear on live TV mid-pandemic. For f*ck's sake.

But they've much to shout about.

Kenny Omega gently negged Hangman Page for having no "drinking buddies". Crucially, he said this in an irreverent and twee video package to promote their all-babyface match with Best Friends. But FTR watched on, sensed the divide, and opened it to a point at which it could not be reconciled - when the Elite were palling around in a match with Jurassic Express - and with this one throwaway line, the path to gold and the implosion of the Elite was laid down.

Page, manipulated, held down Nick Jackson's leg in the Tag Team Gauntlet ahead of the All Out title defence. Sick with guilt, he atoned visually by performing the exact same gesture at the PPV itself, but this time, he did so to protect his friend.

An incredible narrative layer that symbolised the complexity within the Hangman, the 'Elite' part of that company name doesn't just describe the personnel.

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!