And so it all comes down to this. Today is the day. AEW All Out is but hours away. And we have only one match left to preview. The biggest of them all. History will be made, one way or the other. (Here’s our latest preview.)
It’s among the most important decisions AEW’s EVPs will ever make. Do we go with youth and try to make a new star? Or do we go with a legend and ride along with a ready-made icon? Those are our options…
AEW World Championship: Hangman Page vs. Chris Jericho
It’s easy to question if Page is ready for this. If it’s too much, too soon. It’s not just a matter of youth – he just turned 28 for the record. Hangman has been an impressive rising name for a while, but he’s never been the top name anywhere he’s been. He was a fairly hot commodity in ROH, but he never held their world title. New Japan seemed to really like him, but he was never even close to becoming IWGP Heavyweight champ. These goals were attainable, but likely years away. Now, he’s in the biggest promotion he’s ever been in, and he’s one match away from holding their top title. Not just holding it, but being the first to do so.
It’s a lot of pressure to put on the guy. He’s being asked to be on a level he’s never been to, full-stop. And here he is being asked to hang with a man – pardon the pun – who literally has triple the experience Page has. Even more than that if you account for main event level experience.
And so, many feel that Jericho is the smarter choice.
He’s the guy people know. The familiar name to come in with as champion when they debut on TNT. This isn’t just gossip, it’s prevalent enough that they said this, nearly word for word, on a recent episode of Road To All Out. If this were WCW, Chris Jericho is certainly the one they’d put the title on.
But despite all the comparisons, this isn’t WCW, is it? The mindset is much more to push newer stars, on paper. And more than anything, when you look back at the lineage to see the first-ever AEW World Champion, wouldn’t you wanna see a guy that was definitively made in AEW? Because by all rights, Hangman would be that guy. No matter what he achieves in AEW, Chris Jericho will always be remembered as being a WWE guy, or at best, a huge star independent of where he worked. He would give instant credibility to the title in a sense, but perhaps not with the image that they’d want to go for…
Neither result would shock me. And honestly, I don’t think either result would be a bad idea. But I’m going with my heart and saying that Hangman Page walks out as AEW World Champion.
Bonus if PAC ends up walking out onto the stage afterwards to stare him down…
AEW All Out takes place on Saturday, August 31st. It hails from the Sears Centre Arena in Chicago, Illinois. It will be airing live on Pay-Per-View and streamed on Fite.tv and B/R Live.
