Brian Cage Explains Why He’s Just Called ‘Cage’ in Lucha Underground, Praises the Work of Keith Lee

– WWE Hall of Famer Steve Austin recently interviewed Brian Cage for his podcast. Below are some highlights (Transcript via WrestlingInc.com).

Brian Cage on why he’s just Cage in Lucha Underground: “The reason why I’m just ‘Cage’ in Lucha Underground instead of ‘Brian Cage’ is because DJ, the writer, Chris DeJoseph, we wanted to keep my name the same. He said, ‘hey, the Network kind of wants to change your name. Here are some other ideas.’ I’m like, ‘these suck. I don’t want to change my name.’ He was like, ‘yeah, I don’t want you to either.’ So he goes, ‘alright, here’s the compromise. How about you’re just ‘Cage’ instead of ‘Brian Cage’?,’ which is the same difference, but whatever and I still own the [intellectual property] to it.” Cage continued, “and he goes, ‘and they want you to wrestle in a singlet or something different.’ I used to just wear trunks, and kickers, and stuff on the indies and everywhere else. So then, they wanted me to wear a singlet. I’m like, ‘I don’t want to wear a singlet because I already get compared to Ryback a lot of times. Unfortunately, I’d be put over Ryback because, like, as a better worker, but I’m like, I don’t want more of a comparison because I’m wearing a singlet as well, but that’s what they went with and a lot of people like that. And, actually, I debuted in Impact with a singlet too and everybody hated it. They said, ‘go back to your other stuff.'”

Cage on the process of working with non-English speaking talents: “Really, when we’re talking backstage, whether it be AAA, or Lucha Underground, or whatever, there’s somebody that’s bilingual and that’s kind of how it [materializes]. That and there are guys that are good and you’ve worked a few times, so you just know their style and their moves. That’s kind of easy. And then, it just becomes body language or even I know the structure of the matches, especially in AAA, so if all of the guys are speaking Spanish, I don’t know what’s going on, but I know what’s going on. People don’t understand it, but I’m like, ‘I don’t understand what they’re saying, but I get it. I know what’s going to happen. Like, okay, I’m with it.'”

His thoughts on Keith Lee:Cage on convincing Keith Lee to move outside of Texas bookings: “Right afterward, I’m like, ‘dude, you’ve been working for the same amount of time that I have and you’re only in Texas? You haven’t done anything else?’ He goes, ‘naw, man. I’ve done some stuff for Ring Of Honor and some WWE tryouts.’ I’m like, ‘man, you need to get out of Texas. And this was probably right when the indies started to get cooking. So he calls me up and he says, ‘I’m going to buy my own ticket to go to a bigger show, like, I’m going to go to Championship Wrestling From Hollywood or I’m going to go to Beyond Wrestling, which one do you think I should go to?’ I’m like, ‘go to Beyond because that has more of a reach throughout the indie market.’ He goes there. Kills it. Before he’s on his flight back, they already have him booked for the next show. And from that, he started going to the UK and here. And then, he became Keith Lee.”