An AEW star has revealed they went “back and forth” WWE prior to re-signing with Tony Khan’s company last year.
Almost exactly a year ago, there was much speculation regarding the future of ‘The Machine’ Brian Cage, with his AEW contract reported to be up in March prior to Supercard of Honor 2023.
At the time Cage was linked with a move to WWE, but would somewhat surprisingly to some fans re-sign with the company despite at that point not being used overly frequently on TV.
While that has changed since, with Cage becoming a more prominent figure across AEW programming we had not heard from Cage himself regarding the decision to re-sign.
That is until recently when Cage spoke with Dan Severn and Eric Carroll on their ‘Unleashed’ show, and gave some background on his decision to re-sign, where he would confirm that WWE were at one point in the picture.
Cage explained that he and his agent negotiated with both WWE and AEW, but revealed that he chose AEW due to the security offered by the company opposed to WWE.
Cage explained:
“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.”
It was reported back in March 2023 that Cage had signed a five-year extension with AEW.
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