WWE NXT Champion Ethan Page appeared on the most recent episode of Insight With Chris Van Vliet, where he discussed his transition from AEW to WWE and his NXT title win.
Page joined AEW a few years ago after a successful run with TNA Wrestling. He signed with WWE earlier this year and quickly won the NXT Championship. Here are the highlights:
On the first conversation with Shawn Michaels: “I was hidden in one of these back rooms in this building, and essentially it was like, Hey, I don’t know everything about you, but you seem like a guy that’s never been given a fair shot, so I’m gonna give it to you.”
Do you know what he saw in you specifically? “No, well also I’m not going to question it, because I’ve been in the game so long that someone looking me in the eyes and being like, I’m going to give you this chance, what you wanted to accomplish, you can try it right now. That was it for me. Someone’s telling me I’m giving you the ball. So if you do well, we’ll both do well. This whole thing has been extremely weird. Then to get the guidance of Matt Bloom and Terry Taylor and then Fit Finlay, any of these guys that I want to either pick something from or ask them questions, or they are just willing to just help you out. That’s not something I’ve ever experienced. It’s such a competitive business, especially everywhere else that I’ve been, you can have camaraderie with fellow wrestlers and stuff like that. But not many guys are just walking around being like, Hey, do you want to get better? This is how. No, because they want to do it themselves. They want that position. But here, especially NXT, I don’t know the main roster yet, but with NXT, this is such a great environment to hone your skills and to get better.”
On if he thought this was possible after leaving AEW: “No. I had 70 independent dates scheduled because I was like, Oh, I got two kids. Got this house, these cars, I moved to America we just got our green cards. This is where we live now, so I have to make sure that my children are fed and the bills are paid. So no, I didn’t.”
On leaving AEW: “It was time. Yeah, it was time. And I wasn’t getting what I magically got here, which was the opportunity to show what I bring to the table.”
On there being a point where he might have been too old for NXT: “Dude, I feel old! I’m training with 20-year-old college athletes that are freaks of nature. That’s what this place is, breeding freaks of nature. And then here’s my broken down 34-year-old ass in training and working out with these guys looking around like, Oh yeah, I’m the old guy now.”
On receiving the offer from WWE: “I took all those independent dates, and I was just kind of betting on myself, trying to, I guess, get some upward momentum back into Ethan Page. I’m very big on following trends and patterns and I could tell that I was on a downward tick, and there wasn’t anything that was going to change there. So I had to kind of change my environment to be able to change my momentum. I booked up, maybe I’m over exaggerating, but up close to 70 shows for the remainder of 2024 and I did a great uh wrestling show in Winnipeg. And on my layover from Winnipeg to Detroit, because I was landing in Detroit to drive for Revolver wrestling in Dayton, Ohio, I got a phone call a number that I didn’t have my phone. They were like, ‘Hi, is this Ethan Page? This is so and so from the WWE.’ Yeah, sure! [They said] ‘We’d like to offer you a contract this long, this amount…’ I’m just like this is not real. I just go ‘Honestly, that sounds fantastic.’ They hung up on me. My phone rings instantly. ‘Hi, this is so and so from WWE.’ And I was like, whoa, wait, that phone call I just got was real? And you agreed to everything, [They said] ‘So we would like to email [the contract] to you, have it signed, send it over over.’ I’m like, whoa, whoa. Then I’m calling my wife, ‘I think the WWE just offered me a job.’ She’s like, Wait, aren’t you coming? Yeah, I’m on my layover. Like, I’m about to land, and I have to go do this show. But yeah, I think I’m gonna work for the WWE.”
Page defends his NXT Title against Trick Williams on the CW Network premiere episode on October 1st.
You can check out the interview below:
