In an interview with the Daily Star, TNA President Dixie Carter stated the obvious about Christian Cage – he has left the company. Carter went on to say that she is sorry to lose his services and likes him as a person and as a talent.
When I first started writing wrestling columns, Christian leaving the WWE was the first real huge story I commented on. With him now leaving TNA, I took a moment to re-read that article and looked back on what I wrote about him leaving the WWE. I found that what I wrote back in 2005 could basically sum up what happened in 2008.
Here is an excerpt of what I wrote in 2005:
“In my opinion, Christian quit because of poor booking. He has the talent to be a main event star, yet the WWE always seemed to put him in the background and put other, less talented, stars ahead of him. He was over with the crowd, even though he played a heel, and was one of the major stars available on Smackdown.”
The same can be said today. All you need to do is replace the words WWE and Smackdown with TNA and Impact.
Christian was the first major talent acquisition that TNA signed. He was the first major star to choose TNA not out of necessity, but because he wanted to. His time in TNA started off with a bang as he defeated Jeff Jarrett for the NWA World Championship less than three months after making his debut. Cage would go on to hold the NWA World Championship two times, both of which ended with him being stripped of the title. Cage would be the last person to hold the NWA World Championship within TNA and would never hold another championship during the rest of his time with the company.
Christian would have a handful of opportunities to win the TNA World Championship, but most of the matches were long shots with multiple challengers, such as a pair of King of the Mountain matches and a Three Ways to Glory match at the No Surrender pay-per-view near his hometown of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Since his last championship reign, Cage has been overlooked and overshadowed by the likes of Kurt Angle and Sting, both of whom have held the TNA World Championship on two separate occasions since the title came into existence in May of 2007.
Aside from those title matches, Cage was basically removed from an already overcrowded main event picture and had been toiling in the upper mid-card scene and tagging with Rhino for the better part of 2008. Much like his last tenue in WWE, Cage has been shoved to the background once again and has become a casualty of poor booking.
So, again, I don’t blame Cage for heading towards greener pastures. The WWE has some roster holes that it needs to fill and Christian could be a great fit once again for the promotion. Hopefully he will get his spot in the main event and stick this time around. He is a great in-ring competitor and is a great person to have on the microphone when he is properly utilized.
