Brian Cage Says He’s Medically Cleared for In-Ring Return From Knee Injury & He’s Writing New Book About His Life

As noted before, Brian Cage has been out of action for AEW since March of 2025 due to a torn quad injury and surgery and had underwent knee replacement surgery this past June.

Muscle and Fitness held a recent interview with Cage. One of the topics discussed included Cage providing an update on his recovery from his injury and knee replacement surgery stating that he was recently medically cleared for an in-ring return.

“I haven’t made my return yet. I just got cleared fully from everyone to be able to come back so then, there’s the hopes of that too, of like, okay, this is a perfect way to press restart and start new and come back and re-debut in a good way, in a new way, bigger way, whatever, and make the best of a bad situation…

I had the match to get cleared yesterday, and one of the things he wanted me to do was get up to just the second rope and jump off. The other guy, he moves and I just have to land on my feet… which is, like, nothing, right? But in my head, I go, can I do that? I’m like, I don’t know. It’s not that crazy but, you don’t know… I have post-surgery knees. I’m like, wait, can I? I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out, and yeah, I did it. It was totally fine.”

Cage also gave his thoughts about how during his first day back in the ring, he was dealing with a strained back because of the box jumps he had been doing for training before he stepped back into the ring.

“My first day back in the ring, I was rehabbing with my physical therapist while we were doing box jumps, all different jump stuff and I’m feeling good, and out of nowhere, for no reason, on a box jump, somehow I strain my back… Which makes no sense, right? I feel like maybe because I did so much glute and hamstring-heavy leg day beforehand, they were so sore so maybe there was just no… my posterior chain couldn’t absorb the impact so my lower back — I don’t know. It made no sense. It was like I did a crazy heavy deadlift… And now my knees aren’t killing me, but my back is killing me, and I’m like, ‘Well, I can’t not go,’ and of course it’s gonna happen now… So for the next two days, I had to go through that and my back was killing (me), holding me up. I’m like, ‘No, I’m still gonna go through, I’m still gonna push through…’”

Cage also gave his thoughts about changing his in-ring style and how he will be dialing back on the aerial moves and saving those for bigger occasions instead for his matches.

“I mentioned this before, I surprisingly do a lot of different, real jumpy, athletic, aerial kind of situations. I’m definitely gonna be dialing back on those for a while. I mean, I don’t need to do ‘em. Everyone knows I can do ‘em, and that doesn’t mean I won’t do ‘em again, but obviously, I definitely don’t need to come back doing those right away. I wanna build some confidence and also, I would save it for a more important moment or a bigger match or whatever the case may be and I’m sure there’s some that I don’t ever do again. I don’t know. It is an opportunity, like I said, to start new and I could change the way I wrestle a little bit and get away with it too from how I look, and maybe I adapt that way and maybe it gets over more, maybe it gets better. I don’t know, so we’ll see.”

Cage alson gave his thoughts about him not wanting to set his expectations too high for his potential in-ring return to AEW.

“I can’t wait, and I don’t know when or where or even how. There’s a few different possibilities… It’s almost too much now because the longer it is and the more I get hyped up — I said I’m listening to music — I don’t wanna have too high of expectations. I’m almost worried about that, like, hyping myself up too much to be let down where it won’t be as good as I want it to be.”

Cage also revealed that he has new entrance theme music for his in-ring return.

“I still have this new entrance music that I’ve listened to so many times, that I can’t wait to debut because it’s so awesome, and I’ll just sit there in my car and I play it so many times where it almost gets me emotional because of the intense feeling that comes where I’m just envisioning myself and coming back through the curtain, hearing that music over the loud speakers, and the crowd reaction and maybe I’m overzealous thinking about this but it just starts to fill me up and get me so excited.”

Cage also gave his thoughts about him currently being in the process of writing a new biographical book focusing on his life and wrestling career.

“I was actually a terrible kid too. I mean, we can even dive into some of that. Nothing to do with athletics but oh my gosh, I was a nightmare kid. I actually started writing a little bit of a biography about myself while I was injured this past year, and I’m writing all these different stories and things and how I remember ‘em, and I’m laughing and then I think it’s kind of funny telling certain stories, and then the more I keep on writing it all and then I’m going back and I’m reading it, I’ll go, ‘This might just come across like I’m a total little asshole.’”

Cage also gave his thoughts about what he did that made him a bad kid.

“The normal stuff… Lying… not listening to your mom kind of situation. I think I got like 14 pink slips in one month in school. I got in a lot of school fights and that’s kind of the normal stuff and then some of the extracurricular activities you do so, I was a big pyromaniac. I was very young. I’d light everything on fire… There’s this stuffing cushion in this chair we’re lighting on fire. Me and my friends, Javon and Willie, we’re all there, and melting it and I’m the ring leader. They’re just kind of watching me, and Javon doesn’t have a shirt on and I go, ‘Hey, Javon, catch,’ and I throw the fire flameball stuffing at him. It sticks to his chest and starts burning him obviously… I jump on him and cover his mouth because I’m like, we’re gonna get in trouble. I’m like, ‘Willie! Grab his legs!’ We drag him over to the hose and try to hose him off and he’s screaming and crying. I’m like, ‘Oh sh*t! We’re gonna get in trouble.’ So I was like, ‘Run Willie! Run!’ Well, I was like, I’m gonna get grounded and his older brother Julian’s gonna beat my ass. Like, ah, we gotta get out of here…”

Cage gave his thoughts about another story of him being a bad kid while growing up.

“I said we were broke, so we lived (in) this mobile home, like trailer park situation, and I found this piece of metal, like metal straw thing and everybody had the same backdoor… I was able to unlock it. I’m like, ‘Oh, so I can unlock everyone’s backdoor?’ So I used to always walk around this fence line just because I would. So I’m walking along the fence line and I would jump into people’s backyards, and I’d go to their backdoor and they’re not home, I would unlock it and I would go in their house and I would eat their popsicles, whatever, frozen dessert. I’d take change off the counter, I’d play with their kids’ toys or look for one that I wanted. All the while I’m thinking, it’s not that big of a deal.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2