During the #SpeakingOut movement (the pro wrestling version of #MeToo that sprung up in 2020, with sexual abuse and harassment survivors sharing their stories), a woman accused popular Ring of Honor and New Japan wrestler and Being The Elite staple Marty Scurll of sexually assaulting her when she was 16-years-old, and intoxicated.
Over the course of a couple statements, Scurll called for change and asked for forgiveness, but was criticized for focusing on the alleged victim not telling him her age and how she was “technically legal in the UK” and not taking more responsibility for his own actions. After a couple of years on the sideline, Scurll began working internationally and on smaller U.S. independents again, but hasn’t returned to anything near the prominence he had as a friend of The Elite and ROH’s booker.
Scurll reentered the mainstream online wrestling conversation a couple weeks ago when he posted a picture of himself with AEW star Hangman Adam Page outside of their old BTE haunt, Cracker Barrel:
Page, who’s generally known as one of wrestling’s biggest allies on progressive issues, quickly became the target of criticism. He sat down with The Takedown on SI’s Jon Alba to answer that criticism.
The assault Scurll is accused of allegedly happened before Page and the English wrestler met, so Page learned about it along with the rest of the world — and after five-plus years of traveling the world together:
“I think when that happened, I was obviously surprised. Shocked. It didn’t seem like the person that I knew.
“But I mean, I knew now that it was, and I guess, I was kind of like, faced with a choice, like what to do with that information. And I reached out to him then because he had faced a lot of consequences from the public. He had lost his job from Ring of Honor. He was facing consequences from people online. So, [I] check to see how he’s doing, and I remained in touch with him for, you know what, since then, [has] been six years.”
Hangman doesn’t make excuses for and in fact condemns what Scurll is accused of, and makes it clear he didn’t take the photo as part of a plan to get Scurll back into mainstream wrestling, at least on his part. In fact, Alba writes that “Page said he never intended for the photo of the two of them to be posted publicly”. The two-time AEW World champ continued:
“I guess I kind of will make a couple things clear about it. I completely recognize that what he did, his actions, are abhorrent. Disgraceful. They are. There’s no excuse. I completely recognize that.
“I’ve always thought that, will always think that about his actions. And I guess as a consequence of his actions, the public has felt strongly about what he did. And for six years, I think because of those reactions, he’s been unable to be a part of mainstream professional wrestling because of, you know, what the public perception would be.
“And I think that the consequences of his actions that he’s had mostly from the public, aside from, like, harassment, I think they’ve been warranted. So I kind of want to make that clear.”
He understands that learning of his private support of Scurll as a person upset his fans, and respects whatever decisions they make about continuing to support him as a result:
“If you hear all that, and you listen to all that, and you feel like maybe you wouldn’t have done the same thing had you been in my shoes, or maybe you still feel uncomfortable being a fan of mine, or even if you’ve lost, like, the smallest amount of respect for me because of any of that, I would just want to say I completely understand that. I can respect it and accept it.”
Asked by Alba why he continues to maintain a relationship with Scurll when he believes what he’s accused of abhorrent, Page explained:
“I guess who I am is, when people treat me with kindness, I try to return it. I have never really wanted to get into that. And that’s more or less why I have a private relationship with him. Not out of a sense of self-preservation or shame, or something like that. But more or less, I just would never want that to be misconstrued as like an endorsement or an effort to rehabilitate someone’s public image, something like that.
“But I guess I’ve just always thought that he’s still a human being, and that relationships are complicated, but they’re still relationships, and he’s still a human being.”
Personally (and even if I wasn’t already a fan of Page’s), I have a hard time finding fault with his answer. I believe him when he says he’s not lobbying for a Scurll comeback, respect that he’s willing to accept whatever consequences come from his friendship with Scurll, and have no grounds to judge his explanation for why he’s chosen to maintain that friendship.
What’s your take on the situation, and Page’s response to it?
Editor’s note: We use “canceled” in the headline as a shorthand, not because we believe “canceling” is a thing. Consequences are. But just as Scurll hasn’t been unemployed since 2020, very, very few people are unable to work at all after similar allegations.