Christopher Daniels details how Hangman Page’s character shift transformed retirement match
Christopher Daniels explained why he chose Hangman Page to be his final wrestling opponent. He addressed the issues surrounding his transition from heel to babyface that impacted the bout.
In an interview with Michael Bochicchio, Daniels discussed the heat Page was getting from fans at the time, and connected it to his retirement match. By the time their feud peaked, Page was perceived as a babyface which slightly altered their initial plans.
“The funny thing is at the time, he was one of the top heels. He was getting a lot of real good heel heat. Especially in his feud at the time with Jay White, he was getting a lot of heat and I wanted to do something that would have benefitted him in the end so I thought to myself, if he were to retire me, if he were to injure me so badly that I couldn’t wrestle again, that would be heat for him. But, what happened between the time of me pitching the idea and the actual match happening, he started to turn babyface, but, as that happened, he and I discussed how the match could stay the same but the ramifications and the repercussions of him retiring me were gonna be different, now that he was becoming more of a popular character and credit to him, he cut one of the most amazing promos setting up this match that I’ve ever heard.”
“I went and cut a promo maybe an hour before him and thought, oh, that was a pretty decent promo and then he went and just blew me away an hour later and just threw me in the dust basically, and you know, most credit to him how well-thought-out well-put-together his character was and his promos were putting that match together.”
Daniels retired after a 32-year wrestling career in 2025. He lost to Page in a Texas Death Match on the January 16 edition of Collision. Since then he has undertaken varied backstage duties at AEW and ROH.
Rosanne Raphael is a wrestling writer with over three and a half years of experience covering all things related to the industry. From a kindergarten teacher to PR Associate to turning her lifelong passion for the industry into a career, Rosanne is currently writing for F4W Online where she focuses on wrestling news, analysis, and storytelling.
Rosanne previously contributed to Sportskeeda as an Assistant Content Manager.
When not consumed by wrestling, Rosanne is a musician and an aspiring artist.