WWE Hall of Famer Bully Ray had high praise for the opening segment of the July 16 episode of AEW Dynamite, which featured the first address from the new AEW World Champion, “Hangman” Adam Page. Speaking on Busted Open After Dark, Bully called the promo a major positive and exactly what the company needed following their All In: Texas pay-per-view.
Bully began by stating he was relieved that AEW chose to open the show with the promo instead of immediately going to the previously advertised six-man tag match. He was immediately won over by Page’s performance. “If you were not a believer in Hangman… I think he would have had to have won you over with his performance at All In and his promo tonight,” Bully stated. “If his performance at All In and his promo tonight did not win you over, then I have no hope for you when it comes to Hangman Adam Page. I thought he was really, really strong tonight.”
A “From The Heart” Speech
Bully described the promo as a pivotal moment for both Page and the AEW fanbase. “After that promo was over, I took to the Twitter machine, and I said that that is what I believe was the from the heart promo that AEW fans needed to hear,” he said. “Kind of like the rah rah speech, almost, that I’ve been talking about for a long time… It really resonated. And I felt it tonight from Hangman.”
He particularly liked how Page responded to the crowd’s “You deserve it” chant. “The fans were chanting, ‘You deserve it.’ And Hangman opened up in the perfect way, by saying, ‘Wait a minute, I think he got it wrong. No, you deserve it,’ meaning the AEW fan base,” Bully explained. “This was a mutual admiration and appreciation between talent… and fan base. A good coming together, a good moment that people can really feel and go, ‘Yeah, that’s my guy.'”
Thanking Swerve Strickland
The most significant part of the promo for Bully was when Page took the time to thank his bitter rival, Swerve Strickland, for his help at All In. “He got to the one thank you that I don’t think any of us ever thought we’d hear from Hangman,” Bully noted. “And I don’t want to say it was begrudgingly, but you can see he was a little uncomfortable with it, yet genuine when he thanked Swerve Strickland.”
While Bully approved of the segment with “two thumbs up,” he did offer some minor constructive criticism. “I wish, when he said, ‘You deserve it,’ he would have pointed to individual people in the crowd,” he suggested. “Make eye contact with as many people in that crowd as possible… and then get them all going and say, ‘I deserved it. You deserved it. We deserved it because we are AEW.'” He called these the “tiny little things that take good to great and great to off the charts.”
In the main event of Dynamite, Hangman Page teamed with Powerhouse Hobbs and Mark Briscoe to defeat The Death Riders (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta) after Page pinned Castagnoli. The victory marks a strong start to his championship reign, though his next challenger, MJF, is already waiting in the wings after winning the Casino Gauntlet match at All In.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Busted Open Radio with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
