Orange Cassidy has proved himself as a workhorse and a fighting champion with his regular AEW International Title defenses.
Cassidy recently spoke to Denise Salcedo about his ongoing title reign, and you can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On regularly defending the title: “When I won the All-Atlantic Championship, it was called that before the International Championship, I really think the goal was just to beat PAC and take that title from him. It didn’t have an identity. It was a new championship, and I didn’t know what to do with it. So I just did what I thought I needed to do, and that was defend it as much as possible.
“There are championships in this company that are able to be defended against a certain group of people, like let’s call them the top five of the roster, those upper echelon people. The idea of having a championship that I could fight against the people that aren’t on television all the time, to not have a spotlight on them all the time, and that they are able to show what they can do. Because as we all know, AEW’s roster is very large, and there are tons of people that are just waiting for that opportunity to show what they can do because they’re all very talented. I was able to do that with this championship. I feel that this should be that. I think it should be something that we can show, ‘Hey, we all can do it.’ That’s what I’m most happy, that I was able to make this championship identify as.”
On his favorite title defenses: “I never like getting beat up, so I know none of them are my favorite. But it is interesting that the championship was, it started on Rampage. I defended it a lot on Rampage against a lot of those guys that we were just taking about. Everyone gave me a tough time, and then it slowly crept its way onto Dynamite. Then I started wrestling the Big Bills and the Jake Hagers, and then I started getting in more pain. I don’t remember the matches. I remember the pain that I felt through each one. So my back hurt tremendously because of Jake Hager, Big Bill, Danny Garcia. My hand is still throbbing because of Buddy Matthews. Zack Sabre Jr., he messed it up. I wrestled against Katsuyori Shibata. That’s crazy, right? I shouldn’t be doing that. But I am.”
Shaquille O’Neal made his AEW in-ring debut on the March 3, 2021, episode of AEW Dynamite titled The Crossroads, where he teamed with Jade Cargill to defeat Cody Rhodes and Red Velvet.
During a recent appearance on the “Should I Keep This?” podcast, AEW referee Bryce Remsberg recalled rehearsing the match, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On rehearsing the match with Shaq: “I had to go to a wrestling school to rehearse that match. Everyone was there. It was like ‘Shaq will be here at 9:30.’ I was like ‘Okay.’ So we’re all standing around, going over the match, waiting for Shaq to show up. A big, giant pickup rolled up — he drove himself — Shaq walks in, rehearsed the match once, said he got it, and walked out. He was there for 15 minutes. ‘Okay, well, this is tomorrow, hope it goes well.’”
On his nephew’s reaction to the match: “My nephew still asks if he’s still in the ambulance. It blows his mind that this giant man somehow disappeared, but he sees him on commercials sometimes and is like ‘How did he get on there?!’”
