Impact Wrestling: Reflecting on Brian Cage’s biggest moments

Putting the X-Division back on the map

The beloved X-Division suffered in the latter TNA years through the GFW/Impact era, but 2018 marked real change when Matt Sydal and Brian Cage were set to do battle at 2018’s Slammiversary. As expected, Cage won the X-Division Championship on one of the company’s best pay-per-view cards in recent memory.

Cage went on to hold the title for the rest of the year before appropriately exercising Option C to take himself to the next level. But before he gave the title up, he helped add prestige back to the X-Division Championship with incredible wins over the likes of Fenix, Rich Swann, and Sami Callihan.

Ten months into his Impact tenure is when Cage suffered his first loss while teaming with Pentagon Jr. and Fenix in a six-man tag match at Bound For Glory. Sami Callihan managed to pin Cage with assists from his fellow oVe members.

Despite the loss, it was very clear that Impact thought highly of Brian based on what he had accomplished in such a short amount of time. It was only the beginning, though.

World Championship pursuits

After Bound For Glory, Brian Cage made it know that he wanted the World Championship, then held by Johnny Impact. In what started as a babyface-babyface feud, Cage came up short to Johnny in the main event of Homecoming in January 2019. A roll-up victory (counted by John E. Bravo) from Impact set up an eventual rematch, but the stakes had to be raised.

Johnny Impact and Taya Valkyrie officially turned heel on the road to Rebellion. And to make sure Johnny and Brian’s rematch was called fairly, Lance Storm was named the special guest referee for their next pay-per-view encounter. Though it wasn’t the main event, Cage managed to beat Impact and fulfill his destiny just one year after his first pay-per-view match.