Ethan Page on Criticisms of Karate Man Angle, WWE Getting Rave Reviews for Ezekiel & Elias

– While speaking to Swoggle on his Going Postl podcast, AEW star Ethan Page discussed his Karate Man gimmick and being criticized for “killing the business,” when WWE got “rave reviews” for the Elias and Ezekiel angle. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Ethan Page on creating his Karate Man character: “You want to know what makes me the most mad? This is honestly, this is my curse. It’s my gift, but it’s also my curse. I do everything too soon. This is peak pandemic, I have nothing going on, how am I going to be able to tell stories with just myself? I’ll create this other character, I’ll feud with myself, there are merchandise options, all this stuff. I’m doing double bookings. I’m taking these paydays where Ethan Page wrestles at 2, Karate Man wrestles at 4, Ethan Page wrestles at 8. Karate Man outsold Ethan Page in merch. The whole time I’m thinking, ‘People [muffled] don’t tell me what to do.’ Then, when it was kind of like pushed on me to bring it on television, I was ultimately offered an ultimatum where it was like, ‘On your exit, you can either turn on your tag partner and do this feud with him, or you do Karate Man on TV.’ I was like, ‘Well, there might be money in the future for this, so let’s just do Karate Man on TV.’ In my mind I’m thinking, ‘this will be fine as long as,’ and I was very vocal about this, ‘it gets presented as two separate people’ so there is Ethan Page on the show and there is Karate Man on the show. No one understood it or they chose not to. Either way, it’s fine, it’s not my show, I can’t control everything. It all worked out in the end.”

On WWE doing a similar angle with Elias and Ezekiel: “Then, I see on WWE, about a year later, they do exactly what I wanted to do with Elias. Everyone loves it. Rave reviews. Genius idea even. So innovative. I’m thinking, ‘Hold on, I killed the business on a show no one really saw? But this guy…’ It was awesome, all the power to him. The whole time, I’m thinking like, ‘Do we just choose who sucks?’ The part that sucks is that when it comes to comedy, everyone has their own style, but my style is very serious. It sounds stupid, but I thought the more serious and on the nose you treated Karate Man, the funnier it is. The more campy it is, the less funny it is to me. It’s almost like you’re beating people over the head. ‘This is supposed to be funny. You’re supposed to laugh.’ No, if we treat it like these are two separate people, I promise, I’ll play them both to a tee. You have to take it like it’s serious, people think it’s hilarious. The Karate Man lives. He’ll be around forever. I’m putting him in another project, coming soon.”