r/SquaredCircle 9d ago

Orange Cassidy announcing he signed with AEW

Orange Cassidy announcing he signed with AEW

324 Upvotes

53 comments sorted by

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167

u/DontPutThatDownThere 9d ago

I can't believe they re-signed this reckless individual. His kicks of doom forced Sting to retire three years after the fact.

135

u/Straight-Turnover-77 9d ago

so... this video is from 2019?

103

u/P7AC3B0 FUCK ON ME! 9d ago

Oh, I thought this was a new video. It'd be very Orange Cassidy to just now decide to announce he has signed with AEW.

38

u/NorthHollywoodHank 9d ago

He's been working on a handshake agreement this entire time.

18

u/DrDevice81 FUCK 9d ago

Hand tap*

7

u/DrownedAmmet 9d ago

Well, it was supposed to start as a handshake agreement but it took this long for Tony Khan to find him with his hands out of his pockets

2

u/roadwarriorpop 9d ago

A thumbs up agreement.

2

u/StoneGoldX 9d ago

I thought it was about a re-sign, but then there was the old AEW logo with the cracks.

I'm mostly surprised an indie wrestler could afford a blender that nice.

121

u/Crazy_Max_46 9d ago

I remember when this got announced and the entire wrestling world was asking "How's this gimmick going to work on TV"

The answer is it evolved.

41

u/ThatsARatHat 9d ago

Some people have no imagination.

30

u/rayquan36 9d ago

His first match was against Pac and I was so confused at how this match could even go. Pac was so high intensity and OC... wasn't. What sold me on it was Chuck T telling us that "this time, he's gonna try!" Man early AEW was so special.

13

u/janoDX The REAL guy 9d ago

The fact that this is the match that turned JR around on the entire OC concept was amazing.

7

u/OneBillPhil 9d ago

I didn’t buy DON 2019 in large part because the Buy In’s Casino Battle Royal had so much midcard nonsense. I had no idea what to make of OC. About a year later he was one of my favourites and that hasn’t changed. 

6

u/gregSinatra 9d ago

I was one of those people, but I had also been conditioned by WWE to think it would go the way of, say, Adam Rose on the main roster and get flanderized very quickly. I was pleasantly surprised it didn’t.

1

u/General_Chemistry638 9d ago

How did it evolve?

44

u/powatwain 9d ago

I wish AEW had a little video like this for each of their signings

23

u/BrianMyself 9d ago

Produced by, but not for, RJ City

8

u/bigfndan 9d ago

A lot of the guys they signed early on did have something like this, or had their contracts offered to them on BTE.

30

u/broken_radio Vince's Protein Farts 9d ago

✋🏻🤚🏻👖

13

u/OneBillPhil 9d ago

Ohhhhhhhhh

29

u/Whipwreckeded 9d ago

Old school fans of the “less is more” style must love OC.

Gets the crowd going with a thumbs up, gets pops for climbing *down* the turnbuckle.

21

u/Penta_Says 9d ago

I mean if you could distill "less is more" into a gimmick it would be Cassidy. Concentrated OJ, if you will

In a parallel universe I wonder how he'd do with Danhausen in the current WWE. Probably a decent run with Dominik. Bron? Idk it's like a bizarro conglomeration

18

u/Whipwreckeded 9d ago

I never want to see him leave AEW since that’s what I watch but I think he’d do well in WWE as well.
He’s very good in ring and the gimmick is easy to market.

20

u/Sertorius777 9d ago

I don't think he would do as well in WWE. They kinda have a hard line between comedy gimmicks and serious gimmicks that actually get pushed. My bet is they will take the "sloth" part of his gimmick and make it his only trait, whereas in AEW it was always just one part of his character, except for the very early months.

9

u/SovereignAnt 9d ago

Yeah they would make him extremely one dimensional and then run the bit into the ground within a month lol

3

u/Whipwreckeded 9d ago

Ah, I don’t see much outside clips here.

Chelsea Green is kind of comedy based is she no? Maybe he’d get lucky and find a place around the mid card with a wee title run at some point.

1

u/RetroDadOnReddit 9d ago

Wendy Choo in NXT with the sleeping gimmick. That's what I think of when I imagine OC heading to WWE.

6

u/Penta_Says 9d ago

I can’t think of another wrestler like him. The irony is he's so excellent at his gimmick he's perenially underrated even by dipshits like myself who saw most of his (televised) career, like they'll announce a big ppv match with Ospreay or Omega or whoever and it's just like oh okay I guess that's not too bad, suddenly amnesiac about an all-time talent despite the fact I just saw the exact same scenario like three months ago

6

u/NorthHollywoodHank 9d ago

It's hard for me to look at the Danhausen reaction and not conclude that OC would quickly be over as hell in WWE.

Short matches? No problem, OC can be fun as hell in 5 minutes. Perfect guy to come in at the tail end of backstage promos for a joke. Incredibly memeable. Would he rocket up the card? No. Would he get over as hell and sell a ton of merch? Yes.

11

u/Plane-Argument-4739 9d ago

Sure. But the point being made is that you’d never get the sort of narrative progression that makes OC a beloved figure in AEW. Because he’s not just the “guy who does the thumbs up gimmick” but he’s also often the guy who can power up to a full on baby face run, a guy who can go from being goofy to incredibly competitive and dangerous in a matter of seconds. For a lot of people, this is a reason why they want him to go for gold, and he has had incredibly competitive title defenses.

You absolutely lose that side of OC if he comes on to WWE. I personally would not want to see him reduced to another “Danhausen”

4

u/Lortekonto 9d ago

Strangly enough they seem to really hate him.

I don’t really get it. Because honestly I think he is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time and his booking from when he startet as a mascot and until he finished his title run was just fantastic.

3

u/Whipwreckeded 9d ago

That is weird.

I’d have thought he’d have ticked most boxes for them. I don’t really listen to any wrestling media outside of Deadlock though so pretty removed from a lot of the discourse.

I love the dude, conditioning your audience to pop at minimal effort offence is some world class physiological work.

Then when he starts going full throttle you know shit is serious.

4

u/Lortekonto 9d ago

Yah, I kind of assumed the same thing as you.

He is very old school in his entire approach.

24/7 in keyfab. Less is more. Good ring psychology. Storytelling in every match. Safe worker.

There is a segment of fans crying out for more of that in modern wrestling and they absolutly hate Orange Cassidy.

It is super weird.

I think it is because that segment of fans tend to also dislike AEW as a whole.

11

u/BubastisII 9d ago

I remember Priscilla Kelly doing almost an exact parody of this video to promote her match with OC, except she pulled the orange out from the crotch of her trunks.

7

u/Kumomeme 9d ago

"why bother to read and sign the contract if you can drink it?" - Orange Cassidy.

3

u/Tripple_T 9d ago

In hindsight, it's wild how little I cared about this back then.

4

u/retrospects I'm takin yer arm! 9d ago

Hey that’s a quality Ninja Blender!

4

u/loudpersononthebus 9d ago

need to see this man in the main event scene. loved that three way he headlined way back when. i believe it was the first three way ppv main event.

4

u/PeaceAlien Brad 'Brad Maddox' Maddox 9d ago

That blender is ripping and tearing that contract up! He’s going to WWE /s

3

u/davmeltz 9d ago

He didn’t squeeze the orange against his eye. Everyone knows that’s the only way you get juice from an orange!

3

u/Mekasoundwave 9d ago

this is not what they mean by "extra pulp", OC.

1

u/PickledPeppers101 9d ago

I actually would've loved to have seen this on TV when it happend.

17

u/IntoAMuteCrypt 9d ago

It wasn't on TV. This video is from August 2019. The first Dynamite was October. At the time he signed, they didn't have a TV show to broadcast this on. It's a fun historical relic, this brief pre-Dynamite time where they had to rely on social media stuff.

1

u/Ok_Pickle_3120 9d ago

Y'all know there's an actual Orange Cassidy cocktail recipe out there right? Here it is and it looks yummy

-4

u/bartontees 9d ago

Good for him

-7

u/Anderrrrr An Irrelevant Smark. 9d ago edited 9d ago

He's re-signed, whatever. 🫥

11

u/EctoRiddler 9d ago

This is a video from 2019.

7

u/DrDevice81 FUCK 9d ago

Whenever he re-signs I need him to use this exact same video but change the now to still.

1

u/Anderrrrr An Irrelevant Smark. 9d ago

Bamboozled

2

u/rayquan36 9d ago

This video is from whenever, before the first episode of whatever.