AEW's Christian Cage Looks Back On Times In WWE That 'Bothered' Him

While Christian Cage has been a Hall of Famer wherever he's wrestled, from WWE to TNA to now AEW, it hasn't been easy racking up the accomplishments he has. This was especially the case regarding Christian's first tenure in WWE from 1998 to 2005, where he constantly felt he was facing roadblocks trying to break out as a singles star after the breakup of his tag team with Edge in the early 2000s.

Appearing on "Insight with Chris Van Vliet" last week, Christian set the record straight on two key moments that bothered him enough that it led to him leaving WWE for TNA, where he worked from 2005 to 2008 before returning to WWE. The first moment was a match he had in the UK with Batista, where the crowds chanted for him over the babyface World Heavyweight Champion, only for WWE to remove the reactions afterward, and do nothing to capitalize on it.

"After we came back, he [Bastista] said 'What are they doing with you man? They have to do something,'" Christian said. "And I was like 'I don't know.' And then after that...the triple threat thing happened with myself and Cena and Jericho. When they inserted Chris into that to kind of...maybe they didn't see me as a big enough star at the time to be able to carry that...that bothered me. 

"I was like 'You're not even giving me the chance to prove that I can do this? You're just going to add somebody else in there?' So that to me was kind of the writing on the wall. I was like 'Nothing is going to change unless I change it myself.'"

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Insight with Chris Van Vliet" and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription