Tony Khan Explains Brian Cage’s Absence From AEW TV, When He Told Him About Plans For ROH Debut

Tony Khan says Brian Cage sorta let the cat out of the bag … before he even knew what was in the proverbial bag.

During his media scrum after ROH Supercard Of Honor, Tony Khan spoke about Brian Cage being revealed as one of Tully Blanchard’s new clients. Cage had been missing from AEW programming for the past several months, but recently had the option on his contract picked up by AEW. Despite not returning to AEW TV, Cage recently said that plans were in place for him but didn’t elaborate any further.

During the scrum, Khan spoke about how he couldn’t tell Cage that he wanted to use him in Ring Of Honor under his ownership, and explained why he didn’t put him back on AEW programming after his feud with Team Taz wrapped up.

“I really like Brian Cage. I’ve always really liked Brian Cage and it was funny because when I first started thinking this might be a possibility [buying ROH] I hadn’t worked Brian Cage back into my plans yet [for AEW]. I couldn’t tell Brian Cage, especially when we’re in a confidential discussion about [buying Ring of Honor]. Based on where we were going with him, I thought Ricky [Starks] and [Powerhouse] Hobbs and Team Taz are in a really strong position right now and obviously with Swerve and Keith Lee coming in, it didn’t make sense to have Brian come in and fighting Ricky and Will anymore,” Khan explained, noting the current storyline progression with Swerve, Lee and Team Taz in AEW.

Khan went on to note that Tully Blanchard’s storyline ending with FTR also opened up a spot to do something with Cage, but he couldn’t actually tell Cage what was going on due to the legal ramifications of the sale. Khan noted that Cage did a recent interview and said he knew plans were in place for him to return, but couldn’t expand on those details.

“I couldn’t tell Brian, ‘I want to buy Ring Of Honor and re-debut you and repackage you’ until about a month ago. It’s funny because Brian, and God love Brian, he told the media that I picked up his contract, or somebody told them that I picked up his contract, and I was like, ‘Jesus, Brian, why did you do that?’ [laughs] “I never told him not to, but I also couldn’t tell him what I was doing with it. I should have told him not to, but that being said, I think it was good because people wanted to see him come back and it made it that much better.”

Khan then went on to explain that Supercard Of Honor was full of great moments that took advantage of the situation that played out in the past few months. Khan said buying ROH was in doubt when he helped out with Final Battle in December 2021, but things worked out for the best since then.

“There were a bunch of moments tonight that were real, I took some stuff that happened in real-life and tried to leverage it into some really cool stuff to try and add a little bit of intrigue to a pay-per-view that already had great matches and great bell-to-bell wrestling, and tons of real-life interest in stuff like FTR and Briscoes, which the guys had built up. I didn’t know I was going to buy ROH, and if someone else would have bought it, they would have got the benefit of the stuff that we did for Final Battle and I was fine with it. I knew that I might not end up with the company and it didn’t really look like I was going to end up with the company. My gut was that I probably wouldn’t, but I still felt like the right thing to do in December was, at first, to send videos and tributes from all the great Ring Of Honor wrestlers in AEW. Not all of them, but some of them, a lot of the great people, top stars in AEW that used to be in Ring Of Honor.

“I was happy to do that for them, and when Bandido got COVID, I was very happy to send Jay Lethal. Did I know that was going to pay off in a great angle? No I didn’t, but sometimes these things work out well and so I did a lot of stuff, including sending FTR to that show, sent Jay Lethal to that show and sent a lot of videos from stars like CM Punk and Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole, who we’re all so grateful for. Then this thing really came together, culminated and paid off, so a lot of things came together really well and Brian Cage is one of them, and the whole thing worked out really well. I was really happy for him and for Tully because I think it’s a great situation, a great repackage for them.”

Read More: Tully Blanchard Reveals Brian Cage As His New Client At ROH Supercard Of Honor

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