Last night in AEW Revolution, It was revealed that the great mysterious hiring of AEW was Christian Cage. Considering that Christian had just competed in WWE’s Royal Rumble match in January, the hiring came as a surprise to many.
Speaking on the media call later Revolution, AEW founder Tony Khan has revealed that the Instant Classic has actually been his friend for a while.
“He’s been my friend for a long time,” said Khan. “I met Christian Cage seven years ago, he is a great person. I always liked him very much as a person, but long before that I was a big fan of him as a fighter. I think he is one of the great fighters of the past two decades. He made great matches in different companies. He’s a great singles fighter, a great tag champion. I think he adds a lot here. He is one of the best minds in wrestling and is in great physical condition. “
As noted, Christian made his return to the ring after an absence of nearly seven years in the Royal Rumble. After seeing the buzz around this appearance, Khan says the pieces fit together for Christian to come to AEW.
“We saw him compete recently on pay-per-view and there was a lot of interest in that,” said Khan. “It generated a lot of interest. He was interested in fighting regularly and called me. He said, ‘I would really like to come to fight in AEW.’ And I said, ‘I would really like you to come fight in AEW for me, that looks incredible.’ Everything came together very well. “
Although some AEW hires have materialized over several months, Khan says the turnaround in Christian’s contract has been quite rapid.
“It came up in the last few weeks,” said Khan. “Paulo [Wight] and I was talking and trying to close a deal while trying to launch Elevation, and it took a little longer to happen while we were doing that deal, and this one I kept a little bit of a secret longer. This came together very quickly. Christian Cage had just returned to the ring and he looked incredibly impressive, and I didn’t know he didn’t have a contract and would be interested in fighting for us.
“He’s a friend of mine, and I didn’t know that he would be [interested in] coming here. Never in a million years would I have imagined this. Now I’m kind of kicking myself for not being here when I saw him come back [at the Royal Rumble]. He had a great reaction. I cannot say enough. I have a lot of respect for him. All the fighters here, this locker room has as much respect for Christian Cage as one of the great minds, the great fighters. So many people here consider him one of their heroes, and it’s great that the younger generation is going to fight someone who is known to be one of the best minds, not a selfish person, who is looking to share his knowledge with all these young fighters. “
Talking more about the expansion of AEW, Khan says that Christian will help fill the growing list of AEW as they branch out into new forms of weekly content.
“We have so many fighters in their 20s and we are expanding our content this year,” said Khan. “We are doing more shows with the Dark extension now, and the launch of Elevation in a week on the 15th, but also launching another hour on TNT. So, we’re expanding the list, and having someone amazing and a great headliner like Christian Cage is incredible, and also against some of our main events, there are some of them with whom he has a great history, and other main events on this card that he can having great dream games that people thought they would never see. And I know there is a lot of interest in him because I know that there has been a lot of interest in him in the past few weeks. “
AEW Dynamite can be seen every Wednesday night at 8 / 7c on TNT. You can find the full audio of Tony Khan’s AEW Revolution media meeting via the embedded players below: