8 hours ago 1

Way of the Blade: The night AEW's Bryan Danielson and Adam Page had a bloody good time

"Way of the Blade: AEW Edition" is an upcoming book written by Uncrowned's Phil Schneider, which documents the most iconic and blood-soaked matches in AEW history. It publishes Tuesday, July 1, as a sequel to Schneider's 2021 release, "Way of the Blade: 100 of the Greatest Bloody Matches in Wrestling." The following is an excerpt detailing Bryan Danielson vs. Hangman Adam Page from "AEW Dynamite" on Jan. 5, 2022, "a classic, bloody, hard-fought world title war. The kind of match which made the reputations of legends like Harley Race, Ric Flair and Terry Funk."

This was the first time I bled in AEW, and that was really one of the things I was really looking forward to when I was leaving WWE. This idea that, for big matches and for important things, you can bleed.

Bryan Danielson

Adam Page was in an interesting place. Since the beginning of AEW, they had been building the story of Page overcoming his personal demons, self-doubt, and fractured relationship with his former partner Kenny Omega, to finally win the world heavyweight title.

The idea of imposter syndrome isn’t something that pro-wrestling had much dealt with before; pro-wrestling is a sport full of overconfidence and it was fascinating to see AEW tell a story of under-confidence instead. This was the story of a wrestler who needed to prove to himself that he deserved everything he had gotten.

In many ways Page’s journey to the title was the personification of what AEW was trying to do as a wrestling promotion.

One thing that is challenging and unique about professional wrestling is that you can’t just tell the story and then walk away. You have to tell the day-after story as well. Page climbed the mountain, but how does he live his day-by-day? What is the second date like for Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves when there is no exploding bus? Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks kiss on the Empire State Building, but how do they combine their finances and decide who moves where?

Illustration by Chris Bryan (@christhings)

Narratively, Page’s story was over with his title win. And while it was playing out (and while Page was out on paternity leave), two of the biggest stars in 21st century pro-wrestling, CM Punk and Bryan Danielson, joined AEW [in 2021], and the focus of the promotion shifted. The feud between Danielson and Page was focused on Danielson running through the Dark Order and taunting Page, who came off like someone reacting to Danielson rather than the protagonist of his own story.

It felt like the promotion was at a crossroads. AEW could either move the title to "The American Dragon," who had multiple clear directions to go as champion, or try to make Page into not just a man fighting to climb a mountain, but a guy comfortable standing on top.

AEW kicked the booking decision can down the road a bit by having the first match between the two go to a time limit draw, and they came into the rematch with a trio of judges at ringside in case it went the distance as well. (This was clearly an homage to the Wrestle War 1989 match between Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair, which had judges at ringside as well. One of those judges, Terry Funk, jumped Flair post-match, leading many fans to expect a similar move from a judge here.)

One of the good things about AEW’s booking is that they have usually gone with the narratively satisfying finish rather than trying to do a swerve for swerve’s sake. Sometimes, as a result, you have a pretty good idea who is going to win. Here, however, there was no obvious direction the match would go. There were sensible arguments for either guy to win, so there was real drama in every near-fall.

Danielson controlled the pace early, countering a Page topé by Bealing him into the guardrail, damaging his arm, and drop-toe-holding him into the ring steps, opening up the first cut. Danielson then worked both Page's damaged shoulder and bloody head, surely putting Page behind on those hypothetical scorecards.

Page, however, was able to block a Danielson attempt to drive his head into the ringpost, which was something Danielson successfully did in their first match (and legendarily did to Nigel McGuinness 15 years earlier during their Ring of Honor feud).

Page drove Danielson into the post instead, badly opening "The American Dragon" up with the same move that had been meant for him. From that moment, the sides were leveled with both men badly lacerated — Danielson especially going the extra mile, his face and hair soaked.

We had a compact and impressive sprint to the finish. There were multiple callbacks to the previous match between the two — and to wrestling history — including a bloody Danielson failing to skin the cat, a neat way to show how much danger he was in, and Page getting a 2.99999 kickout on Danielson’s running knee, the move he used to win the WWE title from John Cena.

The Buckshot Lariat which Page used to win was maybe the nastiest of his career, a great way to end this chapter of the rivalry and a great way to give some real juice to the Adam Page world title reign.

* * *

Bryan Danielson:

“This was the first time I bled in AEW, and that was really one of the things I was really looking forward to when I was leaving WWE. This idea that, for big matches and for important things, you can bleed. And it’s not like, ‘Oh no, he’s bleeding. Doctor is going to come in and stop the match,’ where it throws off your entire flow. No — in AEW, we can bleed.

“The whole concept was that I made him bleed in the first match, a 60-minute Iron Man match. And, in the second match, the good guy gets his retribution. He makes me bleed for all the stuff that I’ve done to him. At the end of the day, proves he is a world champion, proves he is better than me. When you’re a bad guy, wrestling a good guy and giving them that retribution by really making you bleed — that’s something that’s a lot of fun for me, actually.

“Both of the matches I had with Adam Page, back to back, we did almost 90 minutes of TV wrestling over the span of less than four weeks. And it felt fun, it felt good, it felt compelling. And I think the blood really helped the dramatics of it.

“In my last couple of years before I signed with WWE, I would say between 2007 and 2009, fans saw me bleed more than I did every year combined before that. I bled more in those few years than I did in the entirety of my career before that.

“I would do the [Takeshi] Morishima matches, right? Those were matches that were blood feuds. Until I got to a certain point in my career, I wasn’t necessarily doing anything like that. I’d also made some mistakes early where I would do a match that maybe needed some blood and didn’t do it, I’d do some technical wrestling instead. Which was, in my eyes today, a mistake. It’s just like, ‘Oh, I’m going to do my style no matter what.’ There were a couple of times I did that and that was a real mistake. I’m trying to learn from that a little bit.

“One of my favorite matches that I did was ‘Fight Without Honor’ against Morishima. I showed my wife because she wasn’t aware of all the stuff that I had done before WWE. I showed her the DVD cover of this Ring of Honor DVD of me against Morishima, and my face is just covered in blood. And she’s like, ‘That’s disgusting.’