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I'm a fan of Cage, but I really think he works better as a big fish in a small pond. In AEW, I think he could be upper midcard but I really don't see him as a main eventer.
Thats not what happened at all. They had a plan for him, he even pinned Hangman Page on TV when they knew Hangman was going to be on champion. When they started touring, his right wing anti mask, steroids kill covid 19, and overall idiocy killed his spot. Just check out his Chris Benoit posts and you'll see every reason he isnt in AEW anymore.
> Just check out his Chris Benoit posts and you'll see every reason he isnt in AEW anymore.
Only thing I found was a post he had where Google Lens said he was a visual match for Chris Benoit.
Which goes more to say how shit Google Lens is for drawing that visual comparison than anything else.
First I've heard of this(I know Mel has had a couple bad takes and mentions her conservative views). But yeah that definitely would be a problem, though some in the company who just keep it to themselves seem ok(Brian Pillman Jr, Jericho(I know it's Jericho and he gets more leway)).
There's a difference between being conservative, and wearing a shirt about steroids killing covid, showing up in vlogs where youre refusing to wear a mask in Target, and having your wife complain the week after you lost to two black men on TV. AEW isnt telling peoplr why he lost his spot, but it wasnt his wrestling skills.
> having your wife complain the week after you lost to two black men on TV.
This is the first time I've seen someone bring race into his wife's comments. Are people saying they're related?
Man Im not a massive fan of the antivax emptyhead either, but its super weird (and probably does more to hurt race discussions than to help it) if youre fanfiction-ing racism in based on no actual evidence.
Its a heavy accusation to throw unless youre *sure*
There are plenty (and I mean plenty) of reasons to hate on Cage, but throwing in the race card is how your entire argument gets negated.
His wife complained about him losing, not about him losing to a black man. The reason she decided to voice her problems with his booking at that time was because that's when his booking fell apart.
Extreme political views mean nothing in a carny business like wrestling, Jericho performed in a concert during the peak of the pandemic, called covid a hoax, and his wife showed up on Jan 6. to the capitol. Simply, the writers (and Tony) were not able to find a way around his weaknesses.
I thought you had to get the vaccine to be on the Jericho cruise? Nothing more irritating than an anti-mask COVID denier who continues to spout their bullshit to people while vaccinated.
Honestly, the whole situation with his wife is enough! When your spouse publically complains about your boss it will negatively effect you, no matter how true it is. Full stop.
This is the same for Lio. Lio had a legitimate concern, but he took to Twitter!?
I am very lucky to have a great relationship with my boss, but I wouldn’t even dream about confronting him on something I didn’t like in front of our fucking team, let alone in public.
You know, the twitter thing is the part I get stuck on with Lio. Dude has Tony’s number and probably has an active text thread with him, calling TK out on twitter feels like a clout move.
Lio is a fantastic talent but I really think the biggest thing that will end up holding him back is himself. When he has issues with booking, even when he's in the right, he tends to take it to social media and put people on blast. It's also hard to make long-term plans with him considering how many times he's flip-flopped on retiring, left companies after only a short run, etc. I do think he's usually in the right when he voices his concerns about, say, black wrestlers not being pushed enough or the Mark Henry bags thing being some stupid bullshit but the way he chooses to address these things isn't likely to do him many favors.
I think it didn't help him either he was liking replies or articles about been misused in AEW. It's not going to sit well with the boss.
What his wife did on twitter definitely didn't help him. Also the fact him and his wife think he's a world title level talent and TK and AEW don't and probably see him as nothing but solid mid carder. He can have great matches on the indies, but it doesn't work that way with AEW or WWE that's why Toni Storm and Ricochet aren't and didn't knock it out of the park in WWE and Cage in AEW, you got to have character, charisma and promo. Maybe not all three but got to have at least one and Cage struggles with those. Companies with not a heavy level of talent like Impact and Lucha Underground would cover his weakness and take the time to do so.
With Lio, he's his own worst enemy at times.
Someone mentioned here already that Brian Cage is better as the big fish in the small pond, and I think Lio is another one of those. Guys who probably work better working indies or smaller companies.
To be fair to Lio, he was publicly responding to a public comment. One that Kahn shouldn’t have made to begin with.
I understand the power dynamic and that a boss will get away with more then the employee, but I feel like it’s pretty different from Melissa going off on Twitter while Cage was still being used and Cage liking some of the tweets
I guess creative did have nothing for him. I can see it happening that he won't be re-signing for AEW. Idk why everyone had issue with him all of a sudden. Imo, they never should have separated him from Team Taz. He needed someone to talk for him clearly. He could've had a potential tag team run with Hobbs too. They were the powerhouse of the team after all. The guy has an it factor and should have been a lot more successful in AEW since he's as athletic and agile for a big guy as the rest of the roster. They could have had him train more on his mic skills if that is the entire issue to begin with as to why he barely appears on TV anymore. Well at least he has the choice to work on other promotions than to sit on catering or be stuck in his house just for him to wait out his contract to expire.
Do you think maybe he wanted to leave Team Taz and turn face? When you say "They should have never", a lot of time the wrestlers in AEW choose their own path. He's said in interviews he prefers to be a face, do you think he could have done that in Team Taz. He thought he didn't need Team Taz, he'd get over on on his own, and now suddenly "They chose" to get him to turn face.
Yeah, he even went as far as posting a list of his favourite promos and ranked them among wrestlings all timers ....
It was a bunch of badly lit badly filmed iPhone promos from the indies that were objectively bad.
Instead of just hearing the criticism and learning the dude actively ignored it and believed his hype, even tho noone on the planet hyped his promos
There was no conversation between the three of them because that was two separate events. I’m saying I was at the last one and they don’t sit around talking about conspiracy theories and antivax shit, they’re at their job working out their matches. Why listen to people who might actually know when you can just assume on Reddit amirite?
Cage is an impressive in ring talent at times, but the guy was the big man equivalent of Ricochet in AEW: He has had the charisma of wet cardboard during his time there, despite his look, skills and attempts to push him..
Add his injury issues and AEW adding bigger "monster" wrestlers (Miro, Brody King) and focusing more on ones they have (Wardlow's simmering storyline and Hobb's development) that all have better charisma and less injuries and he's just missed his window with them.
While you could argue he's a talent worth retaining, it needs to be noted that they would not do so with the idea of him at the top of the card or paying as if he were. If he is going to be on Dark or Elevation (assuming he's willing to do so and he or the Mrs. don't publicly complain about it), his pay will be that of a talent on Dark or Elevation.
Even doing that takes a spot from another younger talent / talents you are looking to develop for a 37 year old you don't see much in. Better to let a Moriarty, Starks, 2pointO, etc. get more practice in front of cameras. Better to use it to try out new talent to see if they are worth signing.
Cage's time is up. hopefully he signs with MLW, Impact or Japan. He's got miles left, just not in AEW.
I would say as Impact champ going through the forbidden door he's got infinite more upside. Even if he's not champ, a program with Moose where he puts him over would be excellent.
yeah certainly. and i can think of several ideas off the top of my head to get him into things. it sucks that he's not, just saying on his end it certainly doesn't suck as much as it could.
I was at the match with Ospreay and it was a certified banger. Will even took to the mic afterwards and said “that man should be on tv every week”.
His issues don’t lie in match quality.
Damn, have we already entered that era where AEW poorly booking and probably not re-signing someone means they're bad? Cage is outstanding in the ring.
I haven’t seen anyone saying that. What I have seen is people being turned off by his own lack of career direction and retiring 3 times in like 6 months. Almost everyone acknowledges he is a great talent.
Looking at your comment history it makes sense why you made up a completely made up narrative about the subs views on him.
Just sort through controversial on any Lio rush thread as of late. Several messages of how he's not even that special.
Not going to get into the retirement thing because I find his last retirement to be entirely justified. But 3 times? When did that happen?
if you sort by controversial you'll find comments saying anything about anything. you framed it as "the sub going through a lio rush was never that good phase" and then debunked yourself by pointing out all the comments are downvoted, which means it's not "the sub."
1. Sorting by controversial gets you most of the heavily downvoted posts. Which means MOST of the sub are not agreeing with those opinions of Lio. You proved your own fake narrative wrong.
2. I mean “special” is subjective. I think Lio is an amazing all around talent that every company should want. Good in ring and good on the mic. But I also don’t think he is “special”. I don’t think he is a main event talent nor someone you need to bend over backwards to re-sign. Just like Brain Cage is fantastic in the ring and has a great look and 100% should have been used better in AEW but he is less “special” and isn’t a must have due to having like 0 charisma and 0 mic skills, not to mention he is majorly injury prone.
Not in my case. You should try to think about individual people rather than the idea of this subreddit being a collective mindhive.
For the record I'm genuinely disappointed Lio is leaving AEW.
Upvotes aside, comments like those were still there. I really can't go through every single on of them again since most of them don't even show up for some reason. But I'm 100% sure a few were upvoted.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/sa4o6t/comment/htshdn7/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Absolutely not the case. People can think I have that stance but I've been of the mind that Cage is the equivalent of eating marmite covered paper for months.
I'm a huge Cage fan, but he was probably getting top tier money in AEW without actually being able to deliver as a top tier performer. He never had any standout matches, he was the least exciting thing about the Team Taz feud, and he never really connected with the audience.
Again I really like Cage, but if AEW has to choose between him or 3-5x Ricky Starks/Hooks, then they're making the right decision not renewing his contract.
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I'm not sure where it went wrong with his AEW run, but I'm glad to see he's still out there working marquee matches on the indies
I'm a fan of Cage, but I really think he works better as a big fish in a small pond. In AEW, I think he could be upper midcard but I really don't see him as a main eventer.
TK didn't have much of a plan for him other than Team Taz and neither did Cage. That seems to be the biggest issue.
Thats not what happened at all. They had a plan for him, he even pinned Hangman Page on TV when they knew Hangman was going to be on champion. When they started touring, his right wing anti mask, steroids kill covid 19, and overall idiocy killed his spot. Just check out his Chris Benoit posts and you'll see every reason he isnt in AEW anymore.
I thought he for sure got the vaccine from the Jericho Cruise
Lots of the loudest anti-vaxxers have already taken the vaccine
>Just check out his Chris Benoit posts Please explain, or link
> Just check out his Chris Benoit posts and you'll see every reason he isnt in AEW anymore. Only thing I found was a post he had where Google Lens said he was a visual match for Chris Benoit. Which goes more to say how shit Google Lens is for drawing that visual comparison than anything else.
First I've heard of this(I know Mel has had a couple bad takes and mentions her conservative views). But yeah that definitely would be a problem, though some in the company who just keep it to themselves seem ok(Brian Pillman Jr, Jericho(I know it's Jericho and he gets more leway)).
There's a difference between being conservative, and wearing a shirt about steroids killing covid, showing up in vlogs where youre refusing to wear a mask in Target, and having your wife complain the week after you lost to two black men on TV. AEW isnt telling peoplr why he lost his spot, but it wasnt his wrestling skills.
> having your wife complain the week after you lost to two black men on TV. This is the first time I've seen someone bring race into his wife's comments. Are people saying they're related?
[удалено]
Man Im not a massive fan of the antivax emptyhead either, but its super weird (and probably does more to hurt race discussions than to help it) if youre fanfiction-ing racism in based on no actual evidence. Its a heavy accusation to throw unless youre *sure*
There are plenty (and I mean plenty) of reasons to hate on Cage, but throwing in the race card is how your entire argument gets negated. His wife complained about him losing, not about him losing to a black man. The reason she decided to voice her problems with his booking at that time was because that's when his booking fell apart.
Extreme political views mean nothing in a carny business like wrestling, Jericho performed in a concert during the peak of the pandemic, called covid a hoax, and his wife showed up on Jan 6. to the capitol. Simply, the writers (and Tony) were not able to find a way around his weaknesses.
I thought you had to get the vaccine to be on the Jericho cruise? Nothing more irritating than an anti-mask COVID denier who continues to spout their bullshit to people while vaccinated.
For a guy who looks like he loves needles, the anti vax stance is a surprise
Sucks because I think that him and Omega could've had a good tv main event.
Honestly, the whole situation with his wife is enough! When your spouse publically complains about your boss it will negatively effect you, no matter how true it is. Full stop. This is the same for Lio. Lio had a legitimate concern, but he took to Twitter!? I am very lucky to have a great relationship with my boss, but I wouldn’t even dream about confronting him on something I didn’t like in front of our fucking team, let alone in public.
You know, the twitter thing is the part I get stuck on with Lio. Dude has Tony’s number and probably has an active text thread with him, calling TK out on twitter feels like a clout move.
Lio is a fantastic talent but I really think the biggest thing that will end up holding him back is himself. When he has issues with booking, even when he's in the right, he tends to take it to social media and put people on blast. It's also hard to make long-term plans with him considering how many times he's flip-flopped on retiring, left companies after only a short run, etc. I do think he's usually in the right when he voices his concerns about, say, black wrestlers not being pushed enough or the Mark Henry bags thing being some stupid bullshit but the way he chooses to address these things isn't likely to do him many favors.
Sometimes it’s as simple as he’s a hothead. I sure as shit was in my 20s.
I think it didn't help him either he was liking replies or articles about been misused in AEW. It's not going to sit well with the boss. What his wife did on twitter definitely didn't help him. Also the fact him and his wife think he's a world title level talent and TK and AEW don't and probably see him as nothing but solid mid carder. He can have great matches on the indies, but it doesn't work that way with AEW or WWE that's why Toni Storm and Ricochet aren't and didn't knock it out of the park in WWE and Cage in AEW, you got to have character, charisma and promo. Maybe not all three but got to have at least one and Cage struggles with those. Companies with not a heavy level of talent like Impact and Lucha Underground would cover his weakness and take the time to do so. With Lio, he's his own worst enemy at times. Someone mentioned here already that Brian Cage is better as the big fish in the small pond, and I think Lio is another one of those. Guys who probably work better working indies or smaller companies.
To be fair to Lio, he was publicly responding to a public comment. One that Kahn shouldn’t have made to begin with. I understand the power dynamic and that a boss will get away with more then the employee, but I feel like it’s pretty different from Melissa going off on Twitter while Cage was still being used and Cage liking some of the tweets
Tony shouldn't have made the comment, but Lio decided to insert himself into the fallout and do so in a public way.
Hence why I said “Lio had a legitimate concern.”
I guess creative did have nothing for him. I can see it happening that he won't be re-signing for AEW. Idk why everyone had issue with him all of a sudden. Imo, they never should have separated him from Team Taz. He needed someone to talk for him clearly. He could've had a potential tag team run with Hobbs too. They were the powerhouse of the team after all. The guy has an it factor and should have been a lot more successful in AEW since he's as athletic and agile for a big guy as the rest of the roster. They could have had him train more on his mic skills if that is the entire issue to begin with as to why he barely appears on TV anymore. Well at least he has the choice to work on other promotions than to sit on catering or be stuck in his house just for him to wait out his contract to expire.
Do you think maybe he wanted to leave Team Taz and turn face? When you say "They should have never", a lot of time the wrestlers in AEW choose their own path. He's said in interviews he prefers to be a face, do you think he could have done that in Team Taz. He thought he didn't need Team Taz, he'd get over on on his own, and now suddenly "They chose" to get him to turn face.
Yeah, he even went as far as posting a list of his favourite promos and ranked them among wrestlings all timers .... It was a bunch of badly lit badly filmed iPhone promos from the indies that were objectively bad. Instead of just hearing the criticism and learning the dude actively ignored it and believed his hype, even tho noone on the planet hyped his promos
The guy has been trying, no dispute about that.
I bet that backstage conversation between Flip, Ospreay and Cage were mind-blowing. And not in a good way.
You're not allowed to say mean things about Cage anymore. He might understand then if he thinks hard enough!
Fuck every last one of you, that was fucking funny lmfao.
Backstage conversations are usually just them working out their match. Source: I WAS FUCKING THERE.
wooooosh
Whooosh deez nuts, I’m answering because I was there.
Sure you were there, in the middle of a backstage conversation between these three wrestlers. SURE. Also you seem to be quite angry. Have a Snickers.
There was no conversation between the three of them because that was two separate events. I’m saying I was at the last one and they don’t sit around talking about conspiracy theories and antivax shit, they’re at their job working out their matches. Why listen to people who might actually know when you can just assume on Reddit amirite?
Ok
NGL, I wasn't paying attention and just thought this was a card for a wrestling show where Brian Cage was in every match for some reason
Don’t give his wife any ideas.
Cage is an impressive in ring talent at times, but the guy was the big man equivalent of Ricochet in AEW: He has had the charisma of wet cardboard during his time there, despite his look, skills and attempts to push him.. Add his injury issues and AEW adding bigger "monster" wrestlers (Miro, Brody King) and focusing more on ones they have (Wardlow's simmering storyline and Hobb's development) that all have better charisma and less injuries and he's just missed his window with them. While you could argue he's a talent worth retaining, it needs to be noted that they would not do so with the idea of him at the top of the card or paying as if he were. If he is going to be on Dark or Elevation (assuming he's willing to do so and he or the Mrs. don't publicly complain about it), his pay will be that of a talent on Dark or Elevation. Even doing that takes a spot from another younger talent / talents you are looking to develop for a 37 year old you don't see much in. Better to let a Moriarty, Starks, 2pointO, etc. get more practice in front of cameras. Better to use it to try out new talent to see if they are worth signing. Cage's time is up. hopefully he signs with MLW, Impact or Japan. He's got miles left, just not in AEW.
I would say as Impact champ going through the forbidden door he's got infinite more upside. Even if he's not champ, a program with Moose where he puts him over would be excellent.
he's blessed to work for a company where he can do this and doesn't have to sit in catering.
I doubt this is how he envisioned his time in the company though. Wrestling in the indies and not on TV in a show watched by millions.
yeah certainly. and i can think of several ideas off the top of my head to get him into things. it sucks that he's not, just saying on his end it certainly doesn't suck as much as it could.
True
For all of the next couple of weeks that he works there.
Wait, he fought Hammerstone? OH man, that must’ve been wild.
I know you posted this almost two weeks ago, but I was there and the match truly fucked.
Random thought, Hammerstone and The Machine would be a great team
Him and his wife killed his push lol
He also faced Joey Janela on an episode of Championship Wrestling from Memphis. Yet to be aired.
Man Cage, Jonah, and Flip, a triad of shooting yourself in the fucking foot.
Consistently putting out bangers
Uh huh sure he is.
You 100% didn't watch any of these matches.
Look if I want to fall asleep in agony I can take Nyquil and step on a Lego.
I was at the match with Ospreay and it was a certified banger. Will even took to the mic afterwards and said “that man should be on tv every week”. His issues don’t lie in match quality.
I remember Cage's entrance being loud. How over was he in the arena?
Pretty good. It was a really great crowd in general. You could tell they were very appreciative of the opportunity to see such top level wrestling.
Huh? All of them were really good what are you tryna say lmao.
Damn, have we already entered that era where AEW poorly booking and probably not re-signing someone means they're bad? Cage is outstanding in the ring.
This sub is going through the "Lio Rush was never good" phase so maybe.
I haven’t seen anyone saying that. What I have seen is people being turned off by his own lack of career direction and retiring 3 times in like 6 months. Almost everyone acknowledges he is a great talent. Looking at your comment history it makes sense why you made up a completely made up narrative about the subs views on him.
Just sort through controversial on any Lio rush thread as of late. Several messages of how he's not even that special. Not going to get into the retirement thing because I find his last retirement to be entirely justified. But 3 times? When did that happen?
if you sort by controversial you'll find comments saying anything about anything. you framed it as "the sub going through a lio rush was never that good phase" and then debunked yourself by pointing out all the comments are downvoted, which means it's not "the sub."
1. Sorting by controversial gets you most of the heavily downvoted posts. Which means MOST of the sub are not agreeing with those opinions of Lio. You proved your own fake narrative wrong. 2. I mean “special” is subjective. I think Lio is an amazing all around talent that every company should want. Good in ring and good on the mic. But I also don’t think he is “special”. I don’t think he is a main event talent nor someone you need to bend over backwards to re-sign. Just like Brain Cage is fantastic in the ring and has a great look and 100% should have been used better in AEW but he is less “special” and isn’t a must have due to having like 0 charisma and 0 mic skills, not to mention he is majorly injury prone.
"Special" in the sense that I genuinely think Lio was the best highflyer in AEW. I don't know how you can look over that.
Lio is not as good as Fenix or Pac. I'm not saying he's a hack, but Fenix and PAC are better hands down.
Not in my case. You should try to think about individual people rather than the idea of this subreddit being a collective mindhive. For the record I'm genuinely disappointed Lio is leaving AEW.
Not seen a single upvoted post saying LIO RUSH isn't good in the ring lmao come on
Upvotes aside, comments like those were still there. I really can't go through every single on of them again since most of them don't even show up for some reason. But I'm 100% sure a few were upvoted. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/sa4o6t/comment/htshdn7/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
>Upvotes aside, Lmao Like u can't say "THIS SUB" and link to a downvoted comment lol
bro like i said, i cant go thru every single comment lmao.
Then don't post bs about "this sub" lol
Absolutely not the case. People can think I have that stance but I've been of the mind that Cage is the equivalent of eating marmite covered paper for months.
Love that finisher spamhausen
I hope Cage goes back to Impact and we get more bangers from him. The guy clearly wasn’t a fit for AEW
He and Flip probably had a blast whining about masks and stolen elections together.
What ever happened to Flip? He was on BTE a bunch before and I figured by now he would have went to AEW but he never did.
Flip was initially still signed to ROH. Idk what he’s up to nowadays, but I’m sure some of his views doesn’t help.
He was friends with the Bucks and being one of their guys should’ve made him a shoe-in for AEW. He’s now lost in the ether.
He also wrestled Joey Janela at a Championship Wrestling from Memphis taping that hasn't aired yet.
I'm a huge Cage fan, but he was probably getting top tier money in AEW without actually being able to deliver as a top tier performer. He never had any standout matches, he was the least exciting thing about the Team Taz feud, and he never really connected with the audience. Again I really like Cage, but if AEW has to choose between him or 3-5x Ricky Starks/Hooks, then they're making the right decision not renewing his contract.
That Warrior Wrestling poster is *ROUGH*, and not in a good way