The last run of Sting’s AEW career may have ended with a bang, teaming with Darby Allin against the Young Bucks at AEW Revolution 2024. But it also began with a bang three years earlier at AEW Revolution 2021, when he and Allin teamed to take on Brian Cage and Ricky Starks in AEW’s first ever cinematic match. At the time, many figured cinematic matches like this one, which Sting and Allin won, would be the norm for Sting’s AEW run, due to his age and health issues.

But while discussing it during an appearance on “RVDTV,” Cage revealed that Sting quickly put the kibosh on more cinematic matches, as the numerous reshoots of spots and long shooting hours left the WWE Hall of Famer and wrestling icon sore. While that was a drawback for Cage as well, overall he remains thrilled with the match and with being among the first AEW stars to work with Sting.

“Oh it was awesome,” Cage said. “Well first off too, I gave him the first bomb. Powerbombing him was awesome. I tried to think about it though because I was also a little nervous because I could give him the most perfect powerbomb ever and if anything happened to him, it would still be my fault, right? So I was like ‘Oh…let’s not think about that.’ But no, it was great. 

“And then, the cinematic match we had too I thought was phenomenal. In my opinion, again, I know it’s subjective, it’s my opinion because I’m going to be biased, I thought it was the best cinematic match ever, mainly because it was actually cinematic If you look at it, we had this whole big intro, their entrance and our entrance, how it was shot and different scenes on this 360 camera. So it looks like an actual movie, not just a match filmed by a different camera if that makes sense.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “RVDTV” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription