Christian Cage made his return to in-ring action as a surprise entrant in the 2021 Royal Rumble after saying away from the action for more than 7 years. However, while the plans for his return were only finalised days before the show, the journey for his comeback started months before the PPV.
During his recent appearance on the Talk Is Jericho podcast, the former world champion detailed the steps he took that led to his Royal Rumble appearance. He recalled how Edge’s return a year prior had made him think about his own future. Christian revealed that he made an appointment with the doctor. His thinking was that if the results were positive then he would have opened the doors. If they were not then he would be in no different situation than he already was:
“I went to the University of South Florida and saw a specialist there, and I went through the physical training, went through the testing on the computer. They even said the testing had advanced some, obviously since I took it last, and when I sat in with the doctor, after I did all the tests, he was like, ‘Man, your test scores were great. You were average or above average on everything. You didn’t fail. You weren’t below average on any of these scores. Your physical tests were great, so let’s have a conversation.’ We started talking.”
Christian eventually got to the point where the doctors started asking him about his plans. The former WWE star told them that he wanted to go back and finish his career on his own terms. Once the doctors told him that it was a possibility, he brought it to the attention of WWE. The company then sent him to Pittsburgh for more rigorous testing towards the ending of October:
“I brought it to WWE’s attention that I had got this clearance, and obviously, they were very excited about it and was told they wanted to keep it close to the vest, quietly, [they] sent me up to Pittsburgh, I believe, towards the end of October. They sent me up there, and same thing, I just went through tests, but it was a harder test. It was more thorough tests, and it was probably about five hours long to be honest. And I saw about three or four different specialists for different things. Did a full in the gym physical workout.”
However, while the WWE doctors had cleared him for a return, Christian hadn’t heard anything about his future until January. According to him, the officials called him on the Friday night before the Royal Rumble. They told Captain Charisma that they thought there wasn’t a big enough surprise in the Battle Royal. The current AEW star thought about it for a second and despite having no contract with the company at the time, he said yes to the offer.
