AEW star “The Machine” Brian Cage was a recent guest on the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast as he spoke about his failed WWE tryout, the company telling him that he was simply “average at best” back in 2009, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
Brian Cage on his reaction to his WWE release in 2009: “I remember I was waiting on a raise. I was due for a raise. It was Dr. Tom [Prichard] who was like ‘hey, somebody’s getting a call up this weekend, and you’re going on the road.’ Everyone thought it was me. I missed the call from the office. I was like, ‘Oh man, everyone thought it was going to be me, it is going to be me.’ I’m so stoked. I call them back and I’m all excited. They’re like, ‘Oh hey Brian, how’s it going?’ ‘Good good, I was in the gym.’ I’m trying to play it cool. They’re like, ‘Well, this is kind of the hard part of the job sometimes, but we’re going to have to come to terms with your release.’ And I literally went, not even being a smartass, ‘Did you call the right number?’ I was so in disbelief. I was like ‘What?’ It didn’t even cross my mind. They were like ‘oh yeah, sorry.’ I was like ‘Why?’ And of course, they always give you a BS reason. They go, ‘Well we think you need to get some more experience. You’re a little too indy.’ I go, so you’re going to release me to get more experience in the indies to not be so indy? Okay, sure. That makes a lot of sense.’”
On WWE reaching out to him about Tough Enough and being told he was average at best: “They did reach out to me and they were going to put me on Tough Enough, the first one they brought Stone Cold back for, and then they took me off the list. And then they came to Fresno when I was living there and they invited me down, and I thought they were going to bring me back. I remember they wanted me for NXT season three before it became all girls, and then they changed their minds on that. It went back and forth, and then finally I got a message saying, ‘Oh, never mind. We’re no longer interested.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean? What happened?’ And it was basically, ‘You’re average at best and we’re no longer interested.’ I was so heated. I kept it as professional as I could, but there’s a lot I wanted to say. But I was like, ‘Alright, well I think you and I both know I’m better than average. But that’s fine. I appreciate you getting back to me and maybe we’ll work together again in the future.’ That’s what made me go, I’m not shutting the door on them, but that’s when my desire to get back there, it went away. I felt like, actually, my life professionally and personally excelled once I finally let go of that ‘oh my gosh, I need to be there, I have to be there.’ Everything just started working out and getting better and better.”
