Christian Cage’s history with Impact makes him the right choice as next champion

Christian Cage defeated Kenny Omega for the Impact and TNA World Championships on the premiere episode of AEW: Rampage on TNT last Friday. Cage’s history with Impact makes him the right choice as the new champion and, hopefully, this piece will show you exactly why that is.

Omega did an epic job at carrying the title, bringing much-needed attention to the promotion that sadly has been floundering during the long months of the pandemic. But Impact needed a champion to take the torch and carry it further, and for the benefit of their own future as well. Cage was definitely that man.

Christian Cage’s detailed history provides the perfect backstory for his current title reign with the Impact title

An invisible ceiling.

His time in WWE was fruitful, but he undoubtedly hit the ceiling I often write about. Essentially, WWE lets certain wrestlers only go so far before the company halts their progress, leading them to either a midcard existence with the company or a release. This can be seen in so many WWE careers, and especially recently with the plethora of releases that WWE has made over the last year.

In Cage’s case, he went as far as he could have with WWE during his first run with the company, but the elusive WWE Championship was proving very hard to acquire. His buddy, Edge, was given the proverbial green light, but he was obviously not granted that possibility.

His first run with WWE lasted from 1998 to 2005. As stated earlier, he had some exceptional moments with Edge and some memories of his own, but there was a limit to what he was able to achieve and not because of him.

If Cage was going to make a name for himself, it would have to be with another company. Tt would certainly seem obvious to anyone who watched his career up to that point. It was obvious to him, too.

So, he started with TNA in 2005.

A new playing field

He would only stay until 2008, but all that he would accomplish with the promotion certainly set the standard for many epic careers in TNA. It was also at TNA where he tasted world championship gold for the first time. He mentioned as much in a recent TV promo.

He held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in TNA twice, as well as having other accolades with the company.

They even reunited Cage with Tyson Tomko, with whom he had worked extensively while in WWE.

He returned to WWE in 2009 and then was finally able to hold a top title in the company: the ECW Championship first (a total of two times), followed by the World Heavyweight Championship (twice as well).

Although he had a better run the second time around, he would still only go so far before being forced into retirement due to concussions.

A rising from the proverbial ashes

But like his good friend, Edge (Adam Copeland), Cage would return to in-ring action over at WWE, but would seldom appear on TV after making his comeback in the 2021 men’s Royal Rumble.

He had made appearances involving Randy Orton prior to that but it was all unofficial. The Rumble this year marked his return to in-ring action, but the fact that we didn’t see him all that much was the writing on the wall for where he’d end up.

AEW-bound was Christian, and when he appeared on Dynamite, the pro wrestling world kind of had an “aha” moment; the pieces of the puzzle came together as they should. And as he stated when he got there, he was there to compete, and compete he did.

The belt is in the right hands

At the start of this piece, my cup of coffee full, I set out to prove that the Impact strap is finally on the right waist. Well, now my cup is empty and before I go make yet another pot, I can leave you, dear readers, with this certainty: Because of his history with TNA/Impact, and the fact that all those years ago, his being there represented a fresh start for a guy who deserved all the chances in the world but didn’t get any, and now, all these years later, that belt ended up doing the same exact thing.

Now, maybe he can end his career on his own terms by helping the young wrestlers on the Impact and AEW rosters. Sounds about right to me.