The denim. The shades. The hands in the pockets.
The building shaking with anticipation to see what he’s going to do next. The man who is freshly squeezed, Orange Cassidy, never looks bothered.
If you have been watching All Elite Wrestling for any amount of time, you will have been drawn to Orange Cassidy. Whether positively, as become fully compelled by his silliness and fantastic character work that makes wrestling great, or negatively; where you apparently hate fun and don’t deserve nice things. Whatever side of the pulp-free fence you sit on, Cassidy gets a reaction from you.
Cassidy’s character shouldn’t work. He is a wrestler that doesn’t care about wrestling, in any capacity. Whether it be singles matches, tag matches, helping his tag team partners or chasing championships. That intrinsically flies in the face of the bedrock of a wrestler. Those critical of Cassidy’s shtick say that the character doesn’t have legs – that his ceiling is exclusively a comedy character, and if he ever wins a championship title; it plays up to the ‘AEW isn’t a serious promotion’ mindset.
Then you watch Revolution from this past weekend. The biggest reactions of the night were for Hangman Page, Jon Moxley and Orange Cassidy. Arguably, the biggest reactions of the night were during the latter’s singles debut.
There is something that speaks to the fans within his genes – denim or otherwise, and it reminds us all why we love wrestling. Of course, we love those five start classics that go 60 minutes and leave us breathless with excitement. We love those promos that make us feel like the wrestler in question means every single word they’re saying and that it could be us in that ring, but above all, we want wrestling to be fun.
Orange Cassidy is the living embodiment of fun. The realisation that this medium we all love so much doesn’t have to be super serious and ‘realistic’. Sometimes it can just be a guy who barely connects with a move but the audience acts like he’s just decked his opponent with a vicious unprotected chair shot to his head.
Then there’s the potential for a storyline. A storyline that means Orange Cassidy does have to wrestle. What has to happen to make this man ‘try’? Yes, we caught a glimpse of it during his match with PAC at Revolution but he still started and ended with his usual panache and calmness.
Eventually, AEW will make him want to compete. Make him want to get his hands on someone. Make him passionate, fired up, irate and in the zone. When that happens, it will be the biggest thing in the company, hands down. He’s already one of the company’s top merch sellers. Imagine how much money he’s going to make that company when he becomes a more prominent face.
Orange Cassidy is better than you think and has the legitimate potential to become AEW’s top star.
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