Cage signed a ‘lengthy’ new deal with AEW.
Dating back to AEW Double or Nothing 2020, Brian Cage has been a part of the company. Present day, he is a member of Mogul Embassy alongside Toa Liona, Kaun, Prince Nana and Swerve Strickland.
Cage spoke about his time in AEW while chatting with Dan Severn and Eric Carroll on their ‘Unleashed’ show. He revealed that he signed a new long-term contract with All Elite Wrestling. Cage added that him and his agent had talks with WWE in 2023 before agreeing to his new deal.
A big reason why he opted to stay with AEW is because of how Tony Khan treats talents and viewing them as ‘actual human beings’. Cage said he’s not trying to talk bad about WWE and is aware Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque is making changes, but for a long time, WWE treated talents as if they were disposable. Cage then brought up how Khan takes care of the families of AEW wrestlers that have passed away.
My contract was coming up last year with AEW and I was going back-and-forth with WWE and AEW with my agent. You know, trying to see where we should fit and there’s pros and cons to both and a big reason — I mean, there’s a lot of reasons but, a reason big to stay with AEW was the fact that there was a lot more certainty so to speak. It’s not necessarily a guaranteed contract but more, for lack of a better term, the contract was essentially guaranteed compared to WWE’s which is — I mean, I could be signed there today, gone tomorrow, you know what I mean? So, I thought about it and I got a lengthy, lengthy term with AEW as well so I’m like, alright, you know what?… We (Cage & Melissa Santos) just had another kid too. My son’s about four-and-a-half months old now and I have two other kids but, I was just thinking for, not just professionally but personally, I’m like, for the security, for the length of the contract and comfortability as well. We’re already there, things, you’re used to it. I was like, yeah, if it’s not broke, maybe don’t fix it and I was like, ‘Yeah, maybe it’s just best to stay here and stay put and make the best out of it…’ Going back to Tony (Khan) being such a fan and such a good person and everything else, it plays a big role into that and the way he takes care of his talent and treats his talent and thinks about his talent as actual human beings whereas, you know, not to talk negative crap on WWE and obviously Paul (Levesque), Triple H in charge over there now is making a lot of changes but, for the longest time, it’s kind of looked at as you’re almost just cattle in WWE and once they don’t need you, they’re like, alright, see you later, get the hell out of here, we don’t need you or, they don’t really care as much whereas like, AEW definitely seems like they’re more, like, group and family and if something was to happen — I mean, we’ve had a couple people pass while under contract and Tony still paid off their contract to their family and has taken care of them and stuff which is pretty unheard of so, there’s just a couple examples of how he really cares about the people on his roster.
In his first match of the new year on the 1/3 Dynamite, Cage tore his latissimus dorsi and teres major but continued working through it. He said he took a move he knew he shouldn’t have, but did not want to punk out of taking it.
I took a move I shouldn’t have taken and I didn’t really want to take, but I was like, whatever, don’t be a p*ssy, and it tore my lat and my teres major off the bone. The freaking very first show of the year this year… I literally said to myself, I go, ‘Brian, just say no. You’re gonna take this move, you’re gonna get hurt and then you’re gonna be pissed off…’ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and I was like, no, no, no. Don’t be a baby. You’ll be fine and exactly what my first intuition was-was absolutely right so…
Cage’s Mogul Embassy stablemate Swerve Strickland is going to be challenging for the AEW World Championship at Dynasty. Cage said he thinks he’ll be in St. Louis, Missouri for the event and assumes he’ll be on the Zero Hour.
And I think we’ll be over at Dynasty for the pay-per-view on the 21st in St. Louis, where my teammate Swerve (Strickland) is going against Samoa Joe for the World Title and I should be on the opening card before that.
Cage, Toa Liona and Kaun are two-time ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champions. Their most recent reign was ended by Bullet Club Gold (Jay White, Colten Gunn & Austin Gunn) on the 1/17 Dynamite.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Unleashed with Dan Severn and Eric Carroll with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
