This past week saw the 180th episode of the famed YouTube series Being The Elite, entitled “This Is Supposed To Be Fun”. While it’s not without the usual comedy bits, it’s definitely got a more sullen tone to it than usual, focusing on Nick Jackson trying to get by without his brother for once, Kenny Omega’s depression and identity crisis becoming less of a joke, and most significantly, Hangman Page officially declaring his leave from the Elite.
This was not out of nowhere, as he’s been growing distant from the others ever since losing to Chris Jericho at All Out, and this has gotten worse with his difficult feud with PAC. Cody actually spoke to him about this, being able to tell that he was considering it, warning him that he too had once tried defecting and it didn’t work out for him.
Nevertheless, on this week’s episode, Hangman officially declared that he was no longer a member of the Elite.
Coming off losing the rubber match to PAC on Dynamite last week, Hangman made it clear that, while there were no hard feelings, he no longer wanted to be associated with the group. He didn’t enjoy the stigma that came with being their least successful member.
This doesn’t constitute a turn, given how he said this, and his character didn’t really seem much different on last night’s edition of AEW Dynamite. But we’re certainly in the midst of a slow shift of some sort. And we got the most keen hint towards what this might entail at the end of the episode.
Hangman Page made his way home and came up to a portrait, an old photo of the Elite that depicted himself, the Young Bucks, Cody and… .
Marty Scurll is the Elite’s lost member.
Of the premier cast members of Being The Elite – those given reoccurring namecards in the intro – Marty Scurll is the most major name to be forced to leave since Adam Cole signed with NXT. He was with them for a year and a half, starting in May of 2017. However he has not directly appeared on BTE since the post Wrestle Kingdom 13 show, after the rest of the group left New Japan and ROH to form All Elite Wrestling. Unlike everyone else, who somehow saw their contracts all come up at once, his was set to last for nearly another full year. There was no easy way out of that for him.
So after a somber sendoff, he hasn’t been seen in person on BTE or in anything related to AEW. There have been occasional reminders of his presence however, in varying ways. Cody for a time referred to him as though he were dead, and pasted MJF’s picture over his face. Marty’s voice also seemed to come through in a skit going along with the idea that he’d become a ghost. More recently, one of the Bucks found themselves making a call to Marty, and we cut to a shot of a cell phone on a table, where the contact calling showed up as “Dead Friend 1”.
This lengthy shot of Marty in the photo is the most direct reference yet though, and it’s particularly significant given that his contract with New Japan/ROH was thought to be up sometime this month.
The Villain has notably not appeared for New Japan since the end of the Best Of The Super Juniors tour back in June.
Up to that point, he’d been a significant part of their Junior division. He held the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title going into the start of 2018, one of only six men to have held the championship in the past three years.
But even though in theory they could’ve called him back any time in the past several months, he has been conspicuous by his absence. They haven’t even brought him in for shows in the US, where the Elite were always huge draws for New Japan, or shows in his home country of England, in spite of Marty being one of the biggest name English-born wrestlers available to them. He was also left out of the Super J Cup, and his tandem with Brody King, in spite of seemingly having some steam coming out of the Best Of The Super Juniors tournament, is not featured in the ongoing Tag League.
He’s still been working regularly for Ring of Honor, atleast up until a few weeks ago.
It’s not as though he’s injured or sitting out his contract or anything like that, he’s presumably still on the same deal he was when he was defending the Junior title at the Dome last year. But considering reports of the sour relationship between New Japan and the Elite, it’s easy enough to draw a conclusion that things had become uncomfortable for Marty over there.
While I wouldn’t know for sure, it seems likely to me that either they decided to stop booking him and promote any members of the group anymore, or he opted to stop working for New Japan due to alienation or just a quiet sign of loyalty. Either way, it seems clear enough that he’s not sticking around where he’s at for much longer. In addition to this, he’s fallen short of becoming ROH Champion several times in spite of seeming a natural pick for it and relegated to a more high level midcarder, who currently is yet to be booked for ROH’s Final Battle PPV next month, their WrestleMania equivalent. To me, it feels as though this is largely because they themselves don’t expect him to stick around.
It’s thought that he’s the kind of guy a bidding war might start with. But to say that AEW is the lead horse in that race would seem a little too obvious. The relation is strong and the storyline potential here seems too good to not go for. Nevermind the fact that he’d be a massive star in AEW right off the bat whereas it’d likely take a while for WWE to replicate that, assuming he’d be given a real shake.
This all coinciding with Hangman leaving the Elite is particularly interesting… might the two of them form a jilted lover tag team? Either way, if Scurll’s on his way to AEW, we’ll be seeing him sooner rather than later…
