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Welcome back to Shooting for Heat. I appreciate the feedback I’ve been receiving from my last column in relation to the ECW Elimination Chamber. As always, keep it coming.
My, my, my…how quickly things change. Just from the time between this column and my previous entry, many things have taken place in the world of wrestling. Just look at ECW: Paul Heyman was removed from ECW (can you say death-nail?), Big Show had his last match…possibly forever. CM Punk suffered his first loss when he was the first person eliminated at the atrocious ECW December to Dismember PPV, the green Bobby Lashley is the new ECW champion…and hey, that’s just the happenings in ECW alone. I mentioned ECW since that faction of WWE has been something I’ve been very hopeful of, which isn’t the case anymore. I could very easily write a detailed column expressing my criticisms and distain towards some of the things that have taken place there recently and as a whole since the brand was re-launched not too far back, but I won’t. I’d rather be positive, but in order to be I’ll be writing about a company not under the WWE umbrella…TNA, and more specifically, Christian Cage.
TNA has had several major signings over the last year. Picking up Kurt Angle is obviously the biggest, and signing Sting was very big news when it took place practically a year ago. But before TNA was able to draw in a name like Sting, and before TNA was fortunate enough to receive the windfall that is Kurt Angle…they signed Christian (Cage).
At the time, there hadn’t been any upper-level talent that were fresh from WWE that were willing to go elsewhere. Of course, TNA is littered with former WWE wrestlers, but the key with them is that they ended up working with TNA because the majority of them the WWE had little-to-no interest in anymore. When TNA signed Christian, who would later debut for TNA at the Genesis PPV back in November of 2005, they signed someone who was not only young and talented and that WWE had interest in retaining, but someone who the fans were already behind, despite his total lack of a push in the McMahon world of wrestling.
The “pop†Christian (Cage now in TNA) received at that PPV was enormous. It a lot of ways it was validation. Here was a guy who worked in WWE since 98’, paid his dues (and helped re-invent the ladder match with the likes of the Hardys and the Dudley Boys along the way), had great mic skills, and was a very solid in-ring talent. But despite his obvious high-points, Vince McMahon in all his infinite wisdom decided that Christian was nothing more than a mid-card talent, and was bold enough to express as much to him. It might have come as somewhat of a surprise to those in WWE when he turned down the offer to renew his contract with them back in late 05’, but for the rest of us, we could clearly see why.
Shortly after arriving in TNA and making short work of promising TNA talent (and now recently WWE signed) Monty Brown, Christian made the quick move towards the NWA World Title. After a brief feud with TNA’s version of Triple H, Jeff Jarrett, Christian found himself at the top of his slice of the wrestling world. For the first time in his career, Christian Cage was not just a main-eventer…he was world champion.
TNA hammed up his win a bit with the planted fans that would come to rush the ring, but the moment meant a lot just the same. What followed was rather unfortunate however, not just for TNA, but for Christian as well.
Christian Cage as champion didn’t seem to catch on as many would have expected it would have, myself included. Several speculated that he just wasn’t main-event level material. The problem was much simpler thankfully. In a nutshell, Christian lost a lot of his fire and coolness as a face. People wanted (and still do) to cheer him, but not as a vanilla good guy wrestler that he apparently isn’t very comfortable playing. Some people can make almost anything out of a bad situation (see John Cena), but Christian is just simply better apt to play the heel, which he has been accustomed to doing for quite some time back in WWE. It only seemed logical to bring him in as a face, what with his popularity at the time, so I can’t fault TNA for making that decision. But unfortunately for Christian, it seemed like his time at the top would be short lived in part because of it.
After dropping the title (to guess who) Christian looked to have had his one and only single moment in the main-event sun. Thankfully, they turned Christian on Sting (does anyone not turn on Sting?) and Cage was back to playing the wrestling role he was tailor made for, the heel.
Since making the switch back to a heel I believe Christian has shown a renewed fire, both in ring (which was excellent back when he held the title, despite the relatively poor promos) as well as on the mic of course. His recent feud with real-life friend, Rhino, was outstanding both in and out of the ring. It was everything a wrestling feud should be when you look at it, and both of the men involved came out of it looking better because of it. Now, after being apart of the main event again at Turning Point, Christian…excuse me…the undefeated Christian Cage (credit to TNA for protecting him) is back in the title hunt, this time around with Abyss, the same man he cleanly defeated several times back during his first and only run as champion. Abyss seems to be headed towards a face turn at this point, while Christian seems to possibly be headed back to holding to NWA title.
It’s pretty clear that in TNA right now the main angle/feud going is Joe & Angle (as well it should be), but it’s also clear that the NWA title is somewhat of an afterthought by comparison. Who ever ends up holding the NWA title going forward seemingly is just a placeholder for either Samoa Joe or Kurt Angle. You certainly can’t argue against putting the title on either man. But I do hope that if/when Christian Cage ends up being NWA champion again he’s given a real chance. Whether he does well or not if he wins the title seems to be irrelevant since it’s only a matter of time until Angle or Joe are feuding for it, and that’s a shame.
Christian Cage is a main-event level talent in my eyes, and someone deserving of being in that situation, but it seems likely that he might be the victim of circumstance in this one. As always, time will tell…
Ryan Rosenthal can be reached at Shooting4Heat@gmail.com
