Brian Cage drew a bold comparison between AEW and WWE, saying that in his view Tony Khan’s company puts on better pay-per-views than the competition.
In a recent interview with the Smooth Vega Podcast, Cage pointed mainly to the quality of AEW’s matches.
“Second to none. Like, top. Take any WWE pay-per-view, not even trying to throw shade at WWE, any pay-per-view of theirs and throw any pay-per-view of ours against theirs, and ours smashes theirs.”
Cage did acknowledge, though, that a big rivalry can also make a match stick with fans more.
“There’s two schools of thought there, too. There’s a five-star match, right? If you want to use the Meltzer line, and a five-star match is freaking amazing, but also if there is a four-star match with a great build, it can be almost more memorable than that five-star one-off match.”
“There’s different flavors of ice cream in wrestling, too. Like, I myself also pride myself in being more of a fan of the sports-based wrestling, if you will. So, like, yeah, having that awesome match to me stands out more to me and is what I’m into as a wrestling fan more than the entertainment aspect, if you will.”
Cage also looked back at the heat he took for saying Bryan Danielson vs. Will Ospreay ranks above Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes. The AEW Dynasty match got 6.5 stars from Dave Meltzer.
“Everyone attacked me thinking I was shitting on Roman Reigns and Cody’s match and stuff, and I go, ‘No, that match was awesome and it was fun, and it was very entertainment-based with all the run-ins at WrestleMania.’ It was rad. It was awesome. It was fun. It was a fun time. But was it a better match than Danielson-Ospreay? Not even close.”
“Then I got my justification at the end of the year when ESPN said, ‘Oh, the best match of the year was…’ I go, ‘Oh, where’s all the hate now?'”
Finally, Cage said he believes AEW is in a better place right now.
“I do feel like AEW is on more of an up and WWE feels like it was more on a down, so to speak. Again, I’m not even trying to, like, crap or whatever, but, like, I think AEW’s in a good spot.”
The most recent All In, held August 30 at Wembley Stadium, ended with Will Ospreay beating Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship. The show has a 9.50 rating on Cagematch from more than 500 votes.