Kip Sabian Talks Teaming With Nick Wayne, Facing Cope And Christian Cage At Forbidden Door

Kip Sabian reflects on learning from Christian Cage, working with Nick Wayne, and wrestling in London in a new interview with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp.

Kip Sabian is going to make history in London at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025. He and Nick Wayne will have the task of facing Adam Copeland and Christian Cage in their first pay-per-view match as a tag team in 24 years, longer than Nick Wayne has been alive.

A UK native himself, Kip Sabian is no stranger to wrestling in London, England. During a recent interview with Sean Ross Sapp ahead of the upcoming pay-per-view, Sabian reflected on some of his more recent experiences wrestling in London.

“I wrestled Robbie X when I came back from the shoulder surgery in 2021, and then I think I wrestled him again. It’s just Robbie X. I think Robbie X is the only person I seem to wrestle in the UK. I think the last time I wrestled in London, I’m pretty sure Tony was actually in the audience. I think it was me and MJF, maybe. It was either me and MJF or it was me and—Tony remembers this, but I don’t—someone else at RevPro randomly where I just turned up and Andy was like, ‘Do you want to wrestle?’ and I was like, ‘Go on then.’ It’s been a while.”

Reflecting on his time under Christian Cage in the Patriarchy, Sabian says that he first reached out to Christian several years ago and asked him for guidance, specifically in the promo department.

“I think a lot of it stems from I reached out to Christian a few years ago and just asked, ‘Hey, man. I really love what you’ve done with the transition of what you’re doing right now and I’d love any feedback, any, anything tips that you can give.’ ‘Cause let’s be honest when it comes to on the microphone, he’s one of the best to ever do it in that department. So I just wanted some feedback and that’s started the whole thing. I guess we’re kindred spirits in that.

“‘I really like how you’re taking things a little bit too far with people’s dead relatives. Let’s talk about it.’ No, no, it’s just one of those things where, as a lot of things in my career have happened, things just fall into place. I’ve had probably one of my favorite years in wrestling over the last year. But there comes a time where you’ve got to realize, am I just repeating past mistakes? Where can I go going forwards? Let’s be honest and talk about Nick Wayne for a second. Nick Wayne is probably the best 20 year old wrestler. I’d go out there and say he’s probably the best 20 year old wrestler of all time. Easily. The mind that Nick Wayne has for such a young person is unreal and you can tell the impact that Christian has had on him.”

Discussing his pairing with such a young star like Nick Wayne, Sabian called him a sponge and said that he believes siding with Nick Wayne in this conflict is the smart decision for his future.

“He’s like a sponge. I regard myself as being a sponge in pro wrestling. I always want to try and learn, always want to try and move forward. We’ve talked about it before. But with Nick, it’s great to see. So siding with Nick in that, I think is the smartest decision to go with here.”

Kip Sabian also spoke about his relationship as a fan of the tag team formerly known as Edge and Christian. He admitted that he wasn’t necessarily a fan of the child, and when he was, he was more partial to their rivals, The Hardy Boyz, Matt and Jeff Hardy. He would go back and watch their comedic work with Mick Foley and become a fan.

He also says he was a fan of Christian Cage during his run in TNA Wrestling.

“So I would say that I was probably a Hardy Boyz guy for majority of my like initial run with wrestling,” he said. “My relationship with wrestling is a bit different. I was not really a fan when I was a kid. I watched it, but I didn’t follow the storylines, if that made sense. I just knew that I really liked the Hurricane, and everything else around that was just everything else around that. But the bit that really put me onto the E&C stuff originally would have been probably the stuff with Mick Foley, which I think was the time when I went, ‘Ah, wrestling is funny too.’ It became more of like there was more to it than just watching the matches for me.

“So I say that was probably where I got into them and then obviously, if you become a wrestler, you’re going to go back and look at stuff you might have missed from back in the day. I’ve probably seen everything they’ve ever done multiple times to the point that, yeah, I’m a massive. To be fair, I’ve been a massive fan of Christian for years, like TNA run Christian, just following his career, if there’s one thing, Sunday is Sunday and I’m going to hit him as hard as I possibly can. If I can break a few teeth, that’s a bonus.”

Sabian also said he’s looking forward to getting in the ring with Christian Cage. Fellow wrestlers have often said that they learn a lot from working with Christian, and Sabian is looking forward to experiencing this for himself.

“But you can’t take away the fact that what he’s done throughout his career, I kind of see as something that I follow along with. I see a lot of similarities. I’ve not met a single person that’s ever wrestled Christian that hasn’t said to me, ‘I learned something that I never knew about having that match with him,’ or ‘Having that conversation with him.’ I can say hands down the amount of times that he has made me see wrestling completely differently, and I would say it’s fair to put out there that that’s revitalized my career now. I see some pretty awesome stuff in the future. So I’ll always give him credit for the fact that I think me and him have that kindred spiritness.”

Fans can check out the full card for the AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door event here.

Check out the full interview with Kip Sabian embedded above.