25 Best Wrestling Moments Of 2025

by Michael Sidgwick

1. Hangman Page Opens The Briefcase

Hangman Page All In
AEW

This might be a reach, but Hangman Page might have felt culpable for the fall of AEW across 2022 and 2024.

He was the one who blindsided CM Punk with the “worker’s rights” line; even if he felt like it was the right thing to do, it was certainly the wrong time and place. He didn't know how much the line would snowball and define the company, or for how long. Page played no role in Brawl Out and has maintained his silence over the saga ever since.

Like the rest of his Elite stablemates, across 2023, he felt checked-out - still capable of producing great work, but adrift. Swerve Strickland’s “I’m coming for that spot you don’t even want” line worked so well because it felt true, uncomfortably so.

That programme brought Page back. It led to an impeccably textured storyline in which Page played a believably psychotic, unravelled man for whom redemption still, somehow, felt possible. He was redeemed, fully, at All In: Texas, when he saved AEW from Jon Moxley and retrieved its World title from his briefcase.

Is it possible, when he collapsed, uncontrollably, into tears, that this felt to him as much a moment of atonement as triumph? Is that why the moment felt so much bigger than a mere World title win?

Hangman Page gazed upon a huge, ecstatic crowd, having just created a moment that felt like AEW was actually back. It’s never that simple. The promotion is always a middling TV cycle away from betraying the promises, far too lofty in retrospect, made at launch. But Page gave the fans a reason to never stop believing in it.

An intelligent and poetic wrestling mind, opening the briefcase was actually closure for the Hangman, at long last.

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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!