Hear me out on this one.
Nick Wayne shocked the world when he won the ROH Television Championship at just 19 years old, but, despite now having a singles title on his waist, Wayne was still under the patronizing rule of Christian Cage. Over time, Wayne began to fester in resentment against his oppressive patriarch, and it seemed that things came to a climax at All In, where Wayne, with the help of Kip Sabian and Mother Wayne, pulled the trigger on Cage, effectively ending their relationship with each other. While both Waynes and Sabian have had plenty to say on the matter following the All In turn, Cage has remained relatively tight-lipped on the matter — that is, until Wednesday’s episode of “AEW Dynamite,” where Cage came to blows with Nick and his new stable shortly after an in-ring interview segment.
Cage’s promo can be polarizing — you would think that after being told by Cope to “find himself,” he’d stop making dead dad jokes — but I think that can be chalked up to rancid vibes that AEW programming has had recently (they need to get out of Chicago ballroom residency and fast; I think the venue has bad energy). Cage doesn’t necessarily have to be a pure babyface for you to stay tuned to his blossoming feud with Nick, and, to be honest, I think it’d be a bit weird if Cage suddenly became an upstanding citizen just because someone born in 2005 turned on him. However, my attention isn’t on Cage. My attention is on Nick Wayne.
We’re seeing a boy become a man. Nick has spent a majority of his AEW career being a little twerp, to the point where I have christened him as “Icky Nicky.” He was always just a kid, always scrambling to live up to Cage’s image, but never quite sinking low enough to do so. There have been glimpses of something more here and there, but it felt like, even after his betrayal, Wayne wasn’t a singles competitor. His pre-taped segments just lacked legitimacy; he did not feel like a threat. He was immature, sticking out his tongue and making kissy faces towards the crowd. Now, he has traded in his juvenile gestures for snarls and brutal Con-Chair-Tos. I’m not saying things have fully changed with one in-person segment, but the difference between tonight’s in-person segment versus even his pretaped promos of weeks past is night and day. We are finally seeing Nick grow into the star he will be in the future, and even if you’re not interested in the heel-versus-heel feud AEW is peddling between The Matriarchy and Cage, it’s still cool to see Nick come into his own — not as Christian Cage’s son, disowned or not, but as himself: Nick Wayne.
Of course, AEW could fumble this all tomorrow, and Nick can go back to his “Icky Nicky” ways. However, I’m cautiously optimistic about his development, and, perhaps against my better judgement, am excited to see what he does next.
Written by Angeline Phu