Brian Cage Recalls Dysfunction Among AEW Team Taz Members
During an interview with Dynamite Download, "The Machine" Brian Cage spoke about his time in WWE developmental in 2008, and revealed he was offered a contract by WWE following his departure from IMPACT Wrestling in 2019. Unfortunately, Cage suffered an injury that would require surgery and leave him out of wrestling for four months. The Machine revealed that when he was offered a contract from WWE during a tryout, the company rescinded the deal due to his injury, thus opening the door for him to sign with Tony Khan and AEW.
"In WWE, they rescind your contract," Cage said. "I actually got resigned to WWE and they rescinded my contract. It's happened to quite a few people, that's what happened to Nigel McGuiness when he got signed there, he got his contract rescinded. 'Oh, we're going to rescind that contract, hit us up in 6 months,' which is a kick in the pants right. Tony [Khan] was super cool about it and he said 'Don't worry, it's fine, we still want you, we believe in you and we're still going to sign you. Go ahead and get the surgery, rehab it, get ready, we'll pay you and when you're ready let me know.' So, nobody would've done that and it's understandable too.
"I use this analogy of if I'm trying to buy a car, I was going to buy a brand new Corvette but they were out of stock till July of next year, and I'm like, why would I pay for a car that I don't even have for a year? So it's kind of the same boat, why would you pay someone who you can't use for x-amount of time? I wouldn't have been mad at [WWE], it's a business. It's your job to make money. The injury didn't happen on [AEWs] watch and they really didn't have to do that at all, but the fact that they did, I'm very much extremely thankful for that."
Since joining the company in May of 2020, Cage has been aligned with Team Taz both as the leader and their enemy. Cage spoke of the ongoing feud with Team Taz and why he would be okay if the feud ended. The Machine spoke about being handed the FCW World Title by Taz and why he wasn't a fan of the championship.
"The FCW title, which I never asked for, it was gifted, it was handed to me," Cage said. "That's neat but it isn't something that I asked for or anything that I needed. More so, we never did really that much with it, so it was cool but I was indifferent on the whole thing. And obviously, how it all ended, how I lost it and everything else doesn't sit very well with me. I do think that the more we've gotten with this thing, it's taken longer than it should have, and now to this point, yes, I want my retribution and I still want to beat Ricky Starks. But at the same time, I'm almost okay with moving on just to move on at this point. The idea of finally actually moving away from Team Taz and doing something else would be good as well. Come this weekend, if we move in a totally different direction, I'm not going to be terribly offended by it."
Cage continued to talk about Taz and the disagreements they had during their time together in Team Taz. The Machine said he believed Taz was trying to live through him for his first year with AEW.
"I said that too, I was like come on, Taz, you don't really care about me, you just care how it makes you look," Cage said. "You're really just trying to live vicariously through me and that's why you gave me the FCW title. I thought he was going to ask me to do the Taz-mission, I felt like it was almost more of that than anything else and we sort of had more and more disagreements. I wouldn't say we were butting heads, but it just wasn't working out. I didn't really butt many heads with Will or Hook actually, but it was more with Ricky trying to steal the spotlight and Taz trying to live vicariously through me. Even Taz and Ricky would bump heads a little."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Dynamite Download with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.