{"id":220759,"date":"2026-08-12T14:33:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T19:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=220759"},"modified":"2026-08-12T14:33:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T19:33:25","slug":"aew-rising-and-fading-stars-kyle-fletcher-is-on-his-way-and-hangman-page-has-lost-his-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2026\/08\/12\/aew-rising-and-fading-stars-kyle-fletcher-is-on-his-way-and-hangman-page-has-lost-his-way\/","title":{"rendered":"AEW RISING AND FADING STARS: Kyle Fletcher is on his way and Hangman Page has lost his way"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-2549974974\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>Welcome everyone!<\/p>\n<p>I hope you all enjoyed Grand Slam Mexico. The show was fun but, like I said last week, it was more of a house show than a show that is going to push forward stories.<\/p>\n<p>So I am excited to see what happens at this week&#8217;s Dynamite, but before we get there let\u2019s look back at how I felt things fell.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>RISING STAR OF THE WEEK<\/h3>\n<p><strong>KYLE FLETCHER<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What a year Kyle Fletcher has had. Did you know Fletcher has not lost a singles match in all of 2026? His only blemish was an injury that got him stripped of the TNT Title. Outside of the Continental Classic, he has just two singles losses in the last calendar year. One loss to Mark Briscoe and the other was when he challenged then AEW World Champion &#8220;Hangman&#8221; Adam Page and lost.<\/p>\n<p>Now, as we head into AEW\u2019s biggest show of the year, it looks like Fletcher is headed towards one of his biggest matches to date. The match is not actually set yet, but it appears to be a match against, at least, Kazuchika Okada, with Konosuke Takeshita possibly being added.<\/p>\n<p>It does not matter which two or if all three are in the match, this will be one of the beat matches of the night. Personally, I would love to see it just be Fletcher vs. Okada to see if Fletcher can be the first guy in AEW to get Okada to fourth gear.<\/p>\n<p>All three are over in their own ways. My hope is that Fletcher loses the title, in a three-way. That way, he doesn\u2019t have to be pinned, and he moves his way up the card.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-591772975\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>The rest of 2026 and into 2027 should be spent getting Fletcher more and more comfortable on the mic and ready to move into the AEW World Title picture.<\/p>\n<p><em>ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Check out the latest episode of the &#8220;All Elite Conversation Club&#8221; with Joel Dehnel and Gregg Kanner, part of the PWTorch Dailycast line-up: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spreaker.com\/episode\/all-elite-conversation-club-dehnel-kanner-review-grand-slam-mexico--73715465\">CLICK HERE<\/a> to stream (or search \u201cpwtorch\u201d on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other iOS or Android app to subscribe free)<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"All Elite Conversation Club - Dehnel &amp; Kanner review Grand Slam Mexico\" src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?episode_id=73715465&amp;theme=light&amp;playlist=false&amp;playlist-continuous=false&amp;chapters-image=true&amp;episode_image_position=right&amp;hide-logo=false&amp;hide-likes=false&amp;hide-comments=false&amp;hide-sharing=false&amp;hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>FADING STAR OF THE WEEK<\/h3>\n<p><strong>\u201cHANGMAN\u201d ADAM PAGE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hear me out. No wait, seriously hear me out. This is not a typical pick for this spot because I feel Hangman\u2019s \u201cfade\u201d is intentional. Are you still here? Okay, good. Let me go on.<\/p>\n<p>Hangman made his (odd) return on a random Collision a few weeks back. I called it out when it happened and most agree it was strange. There was a week in between Hangman\u2019s return on Collision and him showing up on Dynamite to chat with Will Ospreay where Hangman offered to help Ospreay against Jon Moxley and the Death Riders.<\/p>\n<p>So, for me, that\u2019s the story I thought they were going to tell. A rematch from last year&#8217;s All In Texas: Hangman vs. Jon Moxley. You would have the history and the match, if for the Continental Title, would be a 180 from last year&#8217;s Texas Death Match.<\/p>\n<p>Then they announced the Continental Cup and Hangman was not a part of the field. You can\u2019t have an All In with a healthy Hangman just not there, right? So what do you do?<\/p>\n<p>The TNT Title storyline has been brewing for months with Darby Allin and Kevin Knight. The International Title has a story that\u2019s been brewing even longer between Fletcher, Takeshita, and Okada. The National Champion is in the Casino Gauntlet. There is a legitimate dream match for the AEW Tag Titles.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-2089676154\" class=\"pwtor-content-1 pwtor-entity-placement\"><!-- Tag ID: pwtorchcom_test_300x600 -->\r\n<div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __300x600\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>All that said, you want &#8211; maybe even need &#8211; Hangman on this show. So what does Tony Khan do? He just sticks him in the Trios Division with two other guys who don\u2019t really have much to do right now either in Brody King &amp; Bandido.<\/p>\n<p>So for me this is the first time I have made this type of argument for a Fading Star of the Week. This is just to get Hangman, and to a lesser degree Brody &amp; Bandido, on the biggest show of the year for AEW and I can\u2019t fault Tony for that.<\/p>\n<p>What interests me is post All In London and what Hangman does. We will all have to wait and see what that\u2019s going to be.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Wade Keller Post-show (8\/5) - AEW Dynamite w\/Keller &amp; Halley\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3vrKqhjFQB8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-109467455\"><div id=\"pwtor-3306702043\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Welcome everyone! I hope you all enjoyed Grand Slam Mexico. The show was fun but, like I said last week, it was more of a house show than a show that is going to push <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2026\/08\/12\/aew-rising-and-fading-stars-kyle-fletcher-is-on-his-way-and-hangman-page-has-lost-his-way\/\" title=\"AEW RISING AND FADING STARS: Kyle Fletcher is on his way and Hangman Page has lost his way\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":189514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,4309,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opnionandanalysis","category-rising-star-fading-star","category-specialists"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2024\/12\/Screenshot-2024-12-12-at-11.56.26\u202fPM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220761,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220759\/revisions\/220761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}