AEW superstar and former IMPACT world champion Christian Cage recently spoke with Shakiel Mahjouri from ET Canada to discuss his main event feud with Kenny Omega, and which of the young talents in AEW he believes have great potential. Highlights from the interview are below.
On getting to headline ALL OUT 2021 against Kenny Omega:
For me, it’s one of those things where I had heard the buzz about Kenny for years, but I’d never really seen a full match of his until he was really kind of on top in New Japan [Pro Wrestling]. And when I watched his matches at that point, I was thinking, ‘Damn, if I could have gotten the ring with this guy, we could have done some special stuff.’ It was what-ifs, you know, like dream match type stuff. To be actually able to get in there and have a couple of matches with him. We had the match in the first episode of ‘Rampage’ where I beat him for the Impact title. Hey, we’re one-on-one we still have to have that the rubber match here at some point down the line. It was huge. To be able to headline, to this point, the biggest pay-per-view that AEW has ever put on it is, it’s pretty special. It’s not lost on me that opportunity that I had to main event that pay-per-view. It’s pretty big.
Which young stars he thinks have big potential in AEW:
I think there are the obvious ones like MJF. He is very gifted on the microphone and that sometimes even overshadows the fact that he’s very good in the ring. And I look at a guy like Ricky Starks, who is also super talented. He can really talk. He’s got that kind of aura about him, there’s something there with him. He has the potential to be a huge star. Those are the kind of two guys off the top of my head that I think are pretty damn good.
Recalls winning Intercontinental title from Booker T at a 2003 house show in Des Moines:
It was a legit injury but he was taking time off after that match to heal up. But it was a legit injury… It was also one of those cool things to keep some interest in live events going. When big things happen on them, and at that time no title changes were really happening on live events. It was something to kind of get some chatter going.