A number of stories from Brian Cage.
Dating back to Double or Nothing 2020, Brian Cage has a been a member of the All Elite Wrestling roster and he’ll be with the company for the foreseeable future as he signed a ‘lengthy’ contract extension.
As Cage was doing a live signing for Whatnot, he told a multitude of stories from his time in AEW. One of those had to do with Tully Blanchard Enterprises (Jonathan Gresham, Tully Blanchard, Brian Cage, Toa Liona & Bishop Kaun). That stable was first introduced at ROH Supercard of Honor 2022.
Cage talked about Blanchard and Gresham being done with the group by Death Before Dishonor 2022. He had been given T.B.E. merchandise and then one hour later, two members of the group were gone. Cage stated that he’s good friends with Tessa Blanchard and said Tully was going to walk away if he was not doing something meaningful. The idea of working with Cage was brought up and he was on board.
Brian mentioned that Tully was looking forward to working with him, Toa, Kaun and Gresham. Blanchard was not able to be at Death Before Dishonor because he was caught up with his other job and travel issues. Speaking about his relationship with Prince Nana, Cage said he loves him.
I walked into the pay-per-view and they handed me the (Tully Blanchard Enterprises) shirt, they handed me the shirt right away… And like an hour later, they came and told us that Tully wasn’t gonna be there… that T.B.E. was no longer gonna be a thing and that Prince Nana was on his way and we would be switching to The Embassy. He was gonna buy it out. I’m like, ‘Oh! What!?’ And then we heard that (Jonathan) Gresham was having issues and they decided to part ways to put it politely I guess. So, I thought it was funny that literally an hour after I had gotten this shirt. I don’t even know if they had gone on-sale yet or not but, they had already lost two members and then it became The Embassy which obviously turned out pretty well in the long run, in the long scheme of things. Then we became The Mogul Embassy so… I don’t even know if they ever sold these shirts or not… Tully was great too and obviously, I’m really good friends with his daughter, and I know Tully’s a big fan of mine and he actually was gonna walk away and he said he’d only stay if he was gonna be brought in with somebody else with a purpose and they brought up the idea of bringing me back with him and he was onboard with that so, there was that aspect where he was looking forward to working with us. But, I don’t know. I don’t think he was checked out, but I know he had his own thing, business he was doing as well and he still loved performing and I don’t think that he wanted to leave, but, I don’t know if he had 100 percent. Maybe I’m wrong here. But, I don’t know if he was 100 percent in and he got stuck too at his other job and I won’t go into his personal stuff so it doesn’t matter but that’s why he also wasn’t able to make the pay-per-view and they knew it and then he got stuck in travel and wasn’t gonna be there so, yeah, it was kind of a long story but, I guess things happen for a reason, and I’m sure he’s doing fine, doing well and then meanwhile, Prince Nana came in and I’d never met Nana and I know a couple people were like, ‘Uh, uh, uh’ but then he became one of the coolest guys. I love Nana and we get along so great backstage and hang out and talk plenty. But I feel like everybody loves Nana. I used to just laugh at him because he’d get up and shake everybody’s hands. But Nana’s the coolest guy and everybody likes him because he learns everyone’s names from every single production person, backstage person, catering person, every person.
There was a point in late 2023 when Cage was going to wrestle Kenny Omega on Dynamite. The match did not take place because while Cage was in Australia for World Series Wrestling, he suffered a quad tendon tear.
He remembers Tony Khan calling to inform him of the match with Omega. Doctors were trying to see if they could clear Cage, but could not make it happen. He then shared that he was not 100 percent when himself, Kaun and Toa won the ROH World Six-Man Tag Titles on the November 1st Dynamite.
I actually tore my quad tendon in Perth with my match with Eric, Eric Young. Like, right at the beginning. I finished the rest of the match and I hoped it was just I tweaked my knee but no. The next two days did not go great for me and actually, I did wrestle a squash match in Sydney just to try to be out there and do something but it was not great and get this, let’s just put it all out there. So, I was out there for two weeks, do the tour, I had the weekend off because it was two weeks, however the days lined up. I was flying back in on a Saturday… The night of the Perth show, then, Tony Khan had texted me. He goes, ‘Hey, can you fly back in after that Australia tour straight to Toledo, Ohio?’ So Australia all the way to Ohio to work Komander and he goes, ‘I wanna give you a cool, fun match and a win’ and I go, ‘Okay. Cool, yeah, yeah, no problem.’ But I’m like, do I really wanna fly all the way back? I will, but, ‘Okay, sure.’ But I’m like, ‘What’s this for?’ And he goes, ‘Oh! Because I wanna give you a fun win before a big match’ that Wednesday and I’m like, ‘Oh, really? What’s the big match?’ He goes, ‘Let’s just say it’ll be kind of a dream match for you’ and I went, ‘Shut the front — are you talking about Kenny Omega!?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, yeah. It’s gonna be you and Kenny on Dynamite the following Wednesday.’ I was like, ‘Holy sh*t!’ So, ‘Yeah, I’ll fly back.’ Not only have a fun match with Komander, beat him, cut a promo, call out Kenny and then work him the following Dynamite. Well, that night in Perth, tore the ole quad tendon and I still flew back to Toledo. That’s why I tried to do the squash match, see what I could and couldn’t do. I flew back to Toledo, I had the trainer work on me, had him tape me up, to see, you know, what we could do because I could probably get through this match kind of and do some stuff and it wouldn’t be the match we could have but I’m like, there’s no way come Wednesday, I’m gonna be able to actually compete-compete with Kenny Omega and have the match that I’ve wanted forever and the doctors actually were like, ‘Yeah, we can’t –’ they were trying to clear me… ‘No, you can’t be cleared…’ I came back still injured when we won the Six-Man Titles back, and I still wasn’t 100, 100 percent but I came back cleared, still kind of against Kenny Omega in the Street Fight with The Don Callis Family. But yeah, been waiting forever for that match, get called about it a week out of nowhere in Australia and of all things too, hurt my knee on a dropdown leapfrog dropkick highspot so, oh well, sh*t happens.
AEW aired footage on Dynamite of the CM Punk-Jack Perry altercation from AEW All In. Cage touched on the interactions he had with Punk in AEW and being part of Punk’s last televised match in the company.
CM Punk wasn’t bad to me, wasn’t always good to me, wasn’t bad to me which is kind of whatever and I think too because he knows I was a west coast guy so I’m kind of team Young Buck. But, I remember it took a while too for us to actually talk and properly introduce and it was fine, we squashed it and I had his last match on TV. I took the last G.T.S. on AEW and I think, I’m just gonna go ahead and assume, the way we talked and structuring the match, I know he didn’t think he could give me the G.T.S. and I think he felt like I was gonna be — no heat or shade towards Ryback but I think he thought I was gonna be a jacked up — whatever. Obviously, he’s having flashbacks with his heat with Ryback. So I’m like, ‘Bro, no, don’t worry. I got you out there’ and after we had the match, he actually was a super fan of mine, was big on me, super high on me and I felt good. I was like, maybe I’ll get a little political rub backstage now, cool, and then he had to go into business for himself and get fired so, didn’t work out so well for me.
Looking back on Cage’s time as FTW Champion, he says there were a lot cooler things that were pitched and he did not really do much with the title. Cage remembers wanting Taz to say, ‘Here comes the pain’ during his entrance but Taz said he was sure the phrase is trademarked.
It was whatever (being appointed as FTW Champion). That was my reaction from the shoot. It was cool. For what the other things that could have happened instead of that were a lot cooler, that were getting pitched so… and also, we never did anything with the title, especially when I had it… If I made something with the title, then that would have been great but we didn’t really do anything with it so it was like, what’s the point of even having it at that time? I don’t know, I don’t know.
I tried to get Taz to say, ‘Here comes the pain’ for me as well. I was like, that was the one line. I’m like, ‘Come on Taz! Say here comes the pain when I come out’ and he was, ‘Oh, I’m pretty sure they have it trademarked because they made a game after it so I don’t know if I can say it.’ I’m like, ‘Ah.’
The 4/17 edition of AEW Dynamite is one of their final shows heading into the Dynasty pay-per-view in St. Louis on April 21st. To get a look at the updated match card for the pay-per-view, click here.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Whatnot with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
