WWE's Ethan Page feels 'legendary' after winning Intercontinental Championship, talks raising title's prestige

Ethan Page made his WWE main roster debut on the "Monday Night Raw" after WrestleMania 42 and set out on a near-six-month journey to chase the Intercontinental Championship.

It wasn’t an easy task for "All Ego." He initially lost at his first opportunity against Penta at Saturday Night’s Main Event back in May. However, his fortunes changed drastically earlier this month.

Going up against then-champion Chad Gable on Nov. 2, Page sent his opponent into the corner. Gable ricocheted off an exposed turnbuckle and was caught in Page’s Egoplex. Page pinned Gable and became the new intercontinental champion.

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"It feels great. I mean, I wish you could know so that I wouldn't have to describe it, but I don't know if that's possible," he told OutKick Dropkick. "I don't know, I feel, legendary."

The WWE Intercontinental Championship is an illustrious title. Legendary wrestlers like Chris Jericho, Triple H, Razor Ramon, The Rock, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Randy Savage and others have held the title at least once.

Raising the prestige of an already legendary championship is no easy task. OutKick Dropkick asked the Canadian superstar how he was going to go about accomplishing that.

"Well, I'm not going to change anything about it," he said. "And I think that, in itself, adds to the prestige because I'm not willing to bend the knee to nostalgia. I don't need a previous anything to prop me up. I will be adding everything to the championship. Whatever I do with the Intercontinental Championship will be solely by my contributions. Nothing to do with the physical championship or its history at all. With me, only addition. It will only grow, it will only become more impactful, it will only become more important. And when in, this very specific championship, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, this will be the thing that all the wrestlers, that never got rid of their fandom, like half the guys in the locker room right now, that wish they were intercontinental champions, so they could bring back the white strap or the oval or whatever peak fandom of their childhood that they're trying to replicate or duplicate or live vicariously through, makes me sick to my stomach what's happened in professional wrestling is half cosplay now, me,

"I'm gonna make what I hold legendary, what I won legendary. I was actually upset they took Chad's side plates off. I wish they just left them on. It's part of history. It's the man that I beat, that's the prize that I won, and they've already altered the championship that I won, and it kind of breaks my heart a little bit. I'm gonna make sure that in 20 years from now, whatever dummy that follows in the footsteps of all the wrestlers today, is begging their boss, who will probably be me anyways, to bring back this design, so that they could live vicariously through me like all the loser wrestlers try and live vicariously through their favorites."

Page is a charitable wrestler, offering this journalist to touch his championship one day. But one cannot expect a superstar at his level to go around making matches and handing out title opportunities to others all willy-nilly.

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It’s not his job to make the matches. It’s why Raw general manager Adam Pearce made a triple-threat match this past Monday to determine the No. 1 contender for Page’s championship. Rey Fenix pinned Big Cass in the match, leaving Gable as the odd-man out who didn’t get pinned but failed to get a chance to recapture the title.

Page made clear it’s not his job to make the matches and he wasn’t going to follow in Gable’s footsteps.

"Who are you to assume one or the other?" Page said when asked if he was going to hand out title shots. "I have a better statement to make. Who am I to assume one or the other? Who am I to make a match? You think I wanted that triple threat to happen? No. I'm not trying to find a contender overnight. I'm still physically recovering from wrestling a literal machine cyborg wrestler, the freaking the child of Bret Hart and Kurt Angle. I'm trying to fight that for 20 minutes straight, using only mental power against a human horse. I'm not trying to find a contender. I'm not making matches. I'm not offering opportunities. I'm not shying away from them. I'm not saying no to my boss. If that was the case, I wouldn't be sitting here with you. I'm here to fulfill my obligations.

"So, if the matchmaker, who is not me, I only get paid to perform. So, if the matchmaker wants to put me in a match, great, he is doing his job, and then I will, ding, ding, ding, wrestle because I am doing my job. Chad Gable, stupidly, bless his heart, this is very normal, I guess, in corporate America, but he was doing someone else's job for free, like an idiot. He was matchmaking and wrestling. What a bozo. I'm not trying to do that. I'm not trying to mediate. I'm not trying to arrange. I'm not trying to do nothing but keep this."

Page is the 193rd intercontinental champion in WWE history. He’s the third different title-holder this year.