10 Most Shocking 2023 Wrestler Transformations
1. Christian Cage
Cast your mind back to All Out 2022, and try to forget about the press conference that ate the show alive.
Christian Cage, having turned heel, was set to wrestle a grudge match with Jungle Boy, the man he had betrayed when the cut wasn't as big. The match was built well enough, and Christian's cheap heat heel work was darkly funny, but it wasn't one of the hottest programmes in AEW. Honestly, it was almost an imposition: another long match on a card stacked with them. That Cage was injured, enforcing a squash, almost scanned as a relief. It was all good, not great: a fun character telling a logical story in the right order. Not life-affirming. Not must-see. Just good when there was already a lot of "good" to wade through.
In 2023, Christian intensified that persona and mastered it so well that he became, in MJF's absence, the best heel in the company.
Go back and watch the Final Burial with Jack Perry. It was incredible. Cage barely executed an offensive move when in control. He worked the whole thing like a total rat, only getting his sh*t in when he had successfully scurried away.
A sinister, loathsome mercenary, Cage - a master at black comedy - is nonetheless so great at convincingly playing an irredeemable piece of trash that, in 2023, the heat he generates is seriously impressive. It's almost impossible to believe that he is a nice fellow and loving uncle to Adam Copeland's kids.
You cannot picture this happening in real life, and that is because Cage - who has transformed from AEW's upteenth great upper midcarder into a bonafide PPV headliner - has absolutely nailed the fiction more than anybody else this year.