IMPACT Wrestling held their Hard To Kill PPV event this past weekend. One of the featured ‘matches’ on the card saw Ethan Page face ‘Karate Man,’ an alter ego of Page that was originally created on YouTube and brought to television.

Ethan Page had already left the company before the PPV aired, so he did not hold back in stating his thoughts on the Mortal Kombat inspired video at all. “I’m going to take a full blown break from social media,” Page noted in on social media. “I’ll be staying active on my personal Patreon as much as I can & probably in this group too cuz I love the fig life & u guys. Xoxox.”

“But man, last night sucked”
Page continued, talking about the segment. “I’m so embarrassed with how IMPACT! lazily edited that segment last night & forced it to be a joke. I felt the thought of the same guys fighting each other was comedy enough & the more serious we took it the better the reaction would be. But cuz I left the company, they lied to my face & just did what they wanted the whole time. I’m sorry if any of my fans paid for that PPV & felt cheated. I honestly feel the free version I gave away was made with more love, care & attention to detail.”

The actual presentation from IMPACT had Ethan Page appear in front of a green screen and cut cheesy lines. Whilst the spectacle had humorous moments, Page was absolutely livid that he didn’t even get a look at the footage before it aired.

“Sadly I had no control over the creative or the final product” Page then continued. “The editor refused to send it to me before hand, so I saw it live with you guys & was surrounded by family. [They were] all scratching their heads at that high school project level delivery on a PPV. I pray ppl know I didn’t edit that hot garbage. I actually begged IMPACT! Not to even have Karate man on tv. I only wanted it for my YouTube channel. But, we don’t write the shows. We just get the scripts & do our best. Idk what else to say. Breaks my heart this company refuses to respect its talent or it’s fan base on a regularly basis.”

Ethan Page wanted Karate Man to be presented in a similar fashion to Matt Hardy‘s Broken Universe, according to Fightful. AEW executives Don Callis and Scott D’Amore were not on board with this vision. Matt Hardy‘s Final Deletion short film is the gold standard of cinematic matches. Don Callis and Scott D’Amore felt that it would be impossible to recreate that magic. Additionally, they wanted to use Ethan Page‘s departure as a vehicle to put over his former partner, Josh Alexander.

Ethan Page is now a free agent evaluating his next moves. Impact Wrestling recently established a working relationship with AEW. Page’s rocky departure from Impact makes a jump to AEW seem unlikely. We expect to see Ethan Page ringside at an NXT Takeover event in the months ahead.

You can watch the Karate Man segment below: