10 Cringey Christian Cage Moments We Completely Forgot About

Christian Cage is a charismatic veteran pushing boundaries and getting renewed attention in AEW this year. With almost 3 decades in the industry, Christian has been a massive hit, but not every moment was entertaining. Captain Charisma has a few bombs buried deeper than the Brood's entrance room under the stage among every iconic tag match and memorable Peep Show.

Having a career that relied quite heavily on comedy, he's had several embarrassing moments played for laughs in a way that worked. When the humor doesn't hold up, or his stories ruin what otherwise would have been good stories, it goes from slightly embarrassing to something a bit worse. Christian's status as a wrestling icon shows he's not had too many of these other moments.

10 Turning on Sting

When Christian joined TNA, in what was arguably the best move of his entire carer, he started as a face. This decision made a ton of sense on paper because he was a massive WWE star jumping over in his prime when the promotion mainly had older nostalgia acts and unknown performers.

His early run saw him tease tension with WCW legend Sting, which was a genuinely fresh match-up. However, the two became allies while Sting competed for the NWA World Title against Jeff Jarrett at Hard Justice. But Christian then swerved and joined Jarrett, ruining the story and making his TNA run a bit harder to sell at first.

9 Ass Cream Christmas

Before AEW brought it back with the Gunn Club, "ass" was common on wrestling television. Additionally, WWE has a long tradition of holiday matches, festive segments, and an appearance from a professional wrestler in Santa Claus attire. On a December Raw in 2002, the gimmicks collied when Goldust gifted Christian "Ass Cream," introduced initially as something the performer had in his bag.

The low-brow comedy of WWE is one of the worst aspects of the promotion, and very few of those segments hold up well. While the wrestlers also seem to be into the bit, watching it back would make many newer Christian Cage fans shake their heads in disbelief.

8 AEW Promo on Jeff Hardy

Blending real life into wrestling can make the stories hit that much harder but are often met with a mixed response from wrestling fans. While certain opinions expressed online could feel unwarranted, some topics are too severe or too recent to use. On AEW television, Christian used both in a controversial moment met with support from only the promotion's most ardent fans.

After Cage turned heel, he was cutting a promo on longtime rival Matt Hardy and involved his brother Jeff's recent DUI and previous substance abuse problems in the promo. While Jeff is a fan favorite and an absolute legend, his continued DUI issues have shown a pattern of behavior that may very well get somebody hurt or worse. Using an active illness Hardy is battling and a situation that has only miraculously avoided hurting innocent people is a bad idea regardless of who signed off.

7 ECW Champion Christian

The WWE/ECW brand looked doomed from very early on, as WWE stripped away everything that made the upstart indie promotion great. While giving the chronically under-appreciated Christian a world title reign should have been a moment fans rejoiced, it looked like the last lousy booking decision that would drag Christian down at the time.

The ECW brand was plagued with horrible matches and very little star power, so even as world champion, Christian felt underutilized. The stories they chose to tell with their top title were completely random most of the time and looked more like a recent Intercontinental Title feud. WWE was burying one of their best workers and making it hard to take him seriously while his contemporaries from the 90s and 00s were working on Raw and SmackDown.

6 Cry Baby Christian

Heels will act in villainous ways, sometimes as dastardly villains or by throwing a temper tantrum in the ring to sell just how unlikable they are. When Christian went on throwing his tantrums in WWE, though, he was surprisingly miscast with that role of annoying heel.

It was a rare instance where the issue was not on anyone involved. Christian was not particularly funny while having his fits, and a more villainous role may have been a better character for him and WWE at the time. Not the worst moment of Christian's career but a forgettable one that left many fans at least disappointed.

5 His Main Event Mafia Story

The Main Event Mafia was meant to be a collection of the biggest stars in TNA wrestling who ruled over Impact. In many ways, that's precisely what it was, although the group's track record involving ego-based booking is debatably one of the worst of the company's storylines. Adding a star like Christian Cage to the group would make sense to add legitimacy, and the initial angle of forced membership had some promise.

TNA let Christian's contract expire right when they were meant to induct him into the faction, though, so they had to panic book an alternate ending. Fans were left incredibly disappointed, which was terrible for everyone involved. The story should have never started when they knew it couldn't be finished.

4 "Out Work Everyone" AEW Mantra

When Christian Cage returned to a wrestling ring, it was a moment that fans had waited a long time to see. His catchphrase, though, was a bit melodramatic even as fans were excited about his return. How his big in-ring return has panned out has only made the slogan feel less genuine in hindsight.

Since his debut, he has fallen into a managerial role, under-delivering on the idea he was back to have classic matches with today's generation. AEW has delivered for fans in many ways, but Christian's gimmick makes him look foolish now that we know he was around to add a big name to the AEW posters.

3 Edge and Christian Mullet Club

Edge and Christian had a show on the now defunct WWE Network that was meant to be silly, and mostly, it worked. Watching two great friends have fun and performing skits with your favorite WWE superstars, will usually be funny. However, when WWE tried to use the show to justify absurd rules and booking, it made fans groan. The show could be hard to watch; it was so embarrassing.

One of the worst moments came in a segment with AJ Styles called, 'Will WWE Talk About It?', exploring parts of AJ Styles' career that his current employer would ignore. Instead, they outright said his NJPW and TNA run were nonstarters and then renamed the Bullet Club the Mullet Club as a joke, which explained precisely how WWE treated the most influential indie faction when they were all signed under a WWE contract.

2 Backlash 2005 Rap With Tomko

Edge, Christian & Tyson Tomko Raw 2005 Cropped

The Backlash PPV in 2005 was right before a WWE draft, and to spotlight that moment; they had Christian and Tomko come out to remind the crowd with a rap. The segment was embarrassing because Christian, while multi-talented, cannot rap. Furthermore, it ventures into cringe territory because the poor rap was used to further a feud with no payoff against a rapping John Cena, who the crowd was turning on anyway, and buried the entire main event scene of WWE from the perspective of a mid-card wrestler.

Christian would lose to every wrestler he calls out in the rap over the next few weeks and never capture a world title on this run with WWE. Worse, he would leave the company in a few months, so this burial couldn't even build a new WWE star.

1 Christian vs. Trish Stratus

The misogyny and worse of the Attitude Era are so often ignored in the name of nostalgia. Unfortunately, most of the era's best-known performers have at least a few matches and moments that should have never made it to air, especially when looking from a modern perspective. One of the worst instances was when Chris Jericho and Christian were feuding, and Trish Stratus got involved.

Trish and Christian were scheduled for an intergender match which Christian vowed to lay down and eat the pin, not fighting the women competitor. However, when the match started, Christian flipped that plan and made degrading gestures as he pinned her down to win. It was part of a more significant Attitude Era issue but has not stood the test of time.