Christian Cage’s WWE Return Was Sabotaged by Vince McMahon, Says Jim Ross

Vince McMahon has always been open about the WWE Superstars he liked and disliked, and it was no secret that he didn’t like Christian Cage. In fact, McMahon went as far as to undermine Christian Cage’s return to WWE. In fact, Jim Ross criticized McMahon for how he handled Christian’s career, calling out his treatment as unfair and unnecessary.

While speaking on his Grilling JR podcast, Jim Ross criticized Vince McMahon for how he treated Christian Cage during his return to WWE, where McMahon instructed Todd Grisham to downplay Cage’s return. Ross felt McMahon’s actions didn’t make sense, saying that when you hire a wrestler, the goal should be to help them succeed so they can make the brand better.

“How do you figure that out? How does that make any common sense? It doesn’t make any common sense. You hire a talent for one reason: to get them over so they can contribute to your brand. How in the hell—and why would Todd Grisham know how to do that anyway? Just lay out. You could lay out, simple enough. But, you know, I don’t know. I think that was just asinine. It’s just—Vince had a hard-on for Christian. I don’t know why. I really don’t. I really don’t know why, but he did.”

Ross felt McMahon seemed focused on holding Christian back, despite Christian always performing well and helping other wrestlers, like John Cena, look good in the ring. Ross pointed out that when he was in charge of Talent Relations, Christian was one of the best performers at live events, no matter who he faced. He believed Christian had a special talent that not everyone else had. Even with this, McMahon didn’t see his value, possibly because of personal feelings or biases.

“And if I could have—back when I was the head of Talent Relations, it didn’t seem to bother us as much because I just kept pushing forward. I kept booking him. Then, when you get the agent reports about the house shows—we called them that back then, ‘Live Events,’ or ‘Premium’ or whatever it’s called now—he had one of the best matches on the card every single night, no matter who he was booked with.

Right? So, who else could protect John Cena better than Christian? Nobody. Nobody. Uh-uh. And that’s a skill. That’s a skill, and everybody doesn’t have it. Vince just never did see it. Sometimes, when he gets something in his mind about failure, that’s what he’s going to stick with.”

Ross also blamed the period when John Laurinaitis was in charge, saying things got worse then. He called McMahon’s treatment of Christian “silly” and “childish” and believed McMahon might have held a grudge because Christian had worked in TNA before coming back to WWE. In the end, Ross felt it was a missed chance to make the most of Christian’s skills.

“You can look at that example and say, ‘Well, that made no sense. Why did that happen?’ Well, that was during Lauranitis’ run, so I don’t know why it happened, but it shouldn’t have happened at all. It was just silly. It was childish. He was never a Christian fan. Christian was probably lucky to get brought back from TNA, and maybe it just gave Vince more ammunition to f*** with him. Seems like that’s what it was. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

That’s why it comes as no surprise Christian Cage has no interest in a WWE Hall of Fame induction either. Nevertheless, Cage is thriving in AEW and that’s what matters to him, but many fans will always feel that Vince McMahon was needlessly cruel to Christian Cage.

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