The WWE Attitude Era Star Who Stole Christian Cage’s Finisher
Finishing moves become forever linked with certain wrestling stars and for Christian Cage his original finisher will forever belong to one of WWE’s Attitude Era stars.
For years, Christian Cage put away opponents with his Unprettier, however, when he returned to WWE after a stint in TNA, the move stayed the same but the name was changed as he now called it the Killswitch.
But things could have been very different indeed, had he not pulled off one move in front of former WWE star Marc Mero while training.
Christian Cage Loses TKO To Marc Mero
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Christian Cage revealed that Marc Mero was set to make his return to WWE and took a liking to one of Cage’s moves, but he at least bought him dinner first:
Marc Mero stole my TKO. So funny story, he was training to come back from an injury and I was training at Bret Hart’s place in Calgary. When we were training, I did a version of the diamond cutter where I would scoop the guy up onto my shoulders, but I’d spin them off and hit a cutter out of the air.
So I did it in the match. And Mark was sitting on the floor watching. He said hey, can you do that again? So I did it again and then he said to me, hey, man, you want to grab a bite to eat and I was like, sure. So when we grabbed a bite to eat and then we were just talking about some Japanese wrestling and some different stuff. And then he said, hey, I’m going back in about a month. I said, okay, cool. And he goes, would you mind if I use that finish?
I was like, this is a guy that’s already signed. This is when he was coming back with the boxer gimmick with the shorts and the jacket and the whole deal. So I was like, what are you supposed to say? This guy is where I want to be. I said yeah, I’ll think of something else go ahead and use it, take it. And so he was nice enough to buy me dinner. But like I said, Everything happens for a reason and this finish suits me much more.
When Marc Mero first joined WWE in 1996 as The Wildman, he used a shooting star press dubbed the Wild Thing to put away opponents. A serious knee injury put him on the shelf for several months in 1997 and when he returned to the ring in October of that year he first used his new TKO finishing move after being re-branded ‘Marvellous’ Marc Mero. Cage did not make his televised WWE debut until a full year later meaning that the TKO was forever lost for him.
During the conversation, Christian Cage revealed which major AEW star proved instrumental in him joining the company.