WWE NXT star “All Ego” Ethan Page spoke with Sports Illustrated on a number of topics, including working with wrestlers new to the business.
Page said, “You do it with an ocean’s amount of patience. Yeah, that’s how you do it. Here’s an example. You could take this as a positive or negative? I’ll take it as a positive, because we were all doing good, whether I wanted to do it or not, I was there. I physically did it. That means I was doing good. Check one off for me, morally. I did a sick kids hospital visit this past Thursday. So, we’re sitting there chatting. It’s like an in studio thing for the kids in the hospital. It’s actually kind of genius. They have their own network. They have celebrities like myself, big stars come in and talk. Get interviewed. It’s very nice. Everyone gets to see it across the hospital. It’s a great thing.”
On when he knew he fell in love with wrestling:
“The host asked the four of us, when did you know you fell in love with wrestling? I had an obvious, elaborate answer of when I was young, watching with my father. Everyone else said, when I got hired. So, a bit of a difference there. Yeah, is that a bad thing? No, not at all. I want everyone to love professional wrestling and I respect the hell out of these athletes. They’re freaks. I can’t do anything they can do, but it is a lot different than the 18 years it took me to get into the position that I’m in and maybe the 18 years of living it took them to land in the same spot as me. So yes, it takes a great deal of patience.”
On understanding that not everyone is on the same path:
“Also, a great deal of maturity and understanding that not everyone is on the same path and everyone is going to do what they do differently. It did take them a lot of work to get to the level that WWE would even look in their direction. So, they needed to be special in their own field for us to even want to bring them on board into professional wrestling.”
