Impact’s Brian Cage had a brief run with WWE in their developmental system, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). Cage signed with WWE in 2008 and was later released by the company in 2009.
During a recent interview with the Miami Herald, Cage shared the plans that WWE had for him and the ‘Night Claw’ character that he was playing:
“I am out there having awesome matches with Justin Gabriel, Tyson Kidd, Trent Barrreta, and Dusty Rhodes pulls me to the office and goes, ‘Let me tell you something baby. You are a phenomenal worker. You got to have something else. You can’t be that. Hey Matt, what’s that guy called the Honey Badger? The Wolverine yeah. But you can’t be the Wolverine because that’s a trademark, so give me something else”
“I went back, and I was looking through my trading cards and comics, and I said, ‘I’ll be like the Dark Claw which is Batman and Wolverine.’ I made my attire off that, and they were going to bring me up, and then Hurricane came up and Dusty said, ‘OK, we are thinking of feuding or teaming you with Hurricane.’ So I started doing a bunch of heel promos but I got released.”
Do you think the Night Claw character would have worked?
On a related note, Dolph Ziggler shared what his original WWE name was going to be. You can read that here.