Ethan Page: Everyone Loved Elias And Ezekiel, But I Killed The Business As Karate Man?

During the pandemic, Ethan Page introduced The Karate Man to the world, filming videos of himself taking on various enemies and challenges. 

The Karate Man would eventually make his way to IMPACT television while Page continued to be himself as part of The North alongside Josh Alexander. 

Speaking to Swoggle on Going Postl, Page discussed his plans for Karate Man and how they didn’t quite work out how he envisioned. 

“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,” he said. 

Karate Man would eventually “kill” Page on IMPACT television. In 2022 on WWE television, Elias would play two characters, introducing the world to his brother Ezekiel. 

Page continued, “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.”

Page previously revealed that he is working on a comic book. 

On AEW television, Page is part of The Firm and is currently working alongside Stokely Hathaway. Page teamed with Matt Hardy to face Jungle Boy & HOOK on AEW Dynamite. Fans can find results from the show by clicking here. 

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