Wrestling Wednesday: Orange Cassidy Wins Even When He Loses
On Sunday, Orange Cassidy stole the show at AEW’s Double or Nothing, even though he (spoiler alert) ultimately lost the three-way AEW men’s championship match against both “The Bastard” Pac and champion, Kenny Omega. It was the match that made me spend $50 on the pay-per-view, and that match alone was entertaining enough to make it entirely worth it.
Orange Cassidy takes a beating better than almost anyone in AEW. He might not take the hard shots Darby Allin does, and he’s not the hilariously overacting Eddie Kingston, or the slip-and-fall artists, Santana and Ortiz. But Cassidy is often the recipient of a beating during picture-in-picture, commercial breaks on AEW Dynamite. The willingness of his character to fill that time by being pummeled and his stoic response to the pummeling make him an incredible asset to his opponents in any match.
Despite taking an unholy beating from both Pac and Omega, Orange Cassidy almost won the match at least five times. He attempted to pin his opponents many other times, including back-to-back attempts on Pac and then Omega after the two of them delivered running crossbodies to each other. In another attempt, keeping in character, Cassidy let Pac do all the work to incapacitate Omega and then threw Pac out of the ring and went for a quick cover of the champion, getting a two-count.
There would be at least four more two-counts for Cassidy, who was a hair from being named new AEW men’s champion at least three times. As expected, Don Callis and Kenny Omega found a way to cheat their way into retaining the title, knocking out the referee and using all four of Omega’s championship belts as weapons on Pac in the match. But Cassidy managed to clock Omega with multiple Orange Punches, only to end up waiting on referee Aubrey Edwards to run into the ring and start a pin count that Omega would apparently counter for a win by pinfall. I say apparently because the count was so fast I didn’t even see the actual end to the match until I rewatched it.
I was on my knees cheering on Aubrey Edwards for saving the day and slapping the floor along with her pin count of Cassidy’s cover, and when Kenny countered, I looked to the sky for what seemed like a second to appeal to the wrestling gods. The match was over before I turned my attention back to the television. I asked by brother-in-law, “What happened?” and before he could form an answer I received a text from my friend (this one) that read: “That didn’t seem like 3 to me.”
It was surprising to me because Aubrey performs a very consistent pin count. But I wasn’t especially disappointed because my guy, Orange Cassidy, managed to win even in defeat. He made the match great, not Pac, and not Omega. And while I feel Orange is still a super submission move away from being a championship contender (maybe call it Orange’s Main Squeeze), it doesn’t change the fact that Cassidy wins even when he loses. Cassidy is the story of almost any match in which he’s involved, and that’s more impressive than Kenny Omega holding four championship belts. Orange Cassidy is the star of the show even when the undisputed champion is involved.
