2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Orange Cassidy vs. Angelico

 

21. Orange Cassidy vs. Angelico AEW Rampage 12/8/23

ER: I'm not sure I could have possibly predicted how much of a Modern Orange Cassidy Lover I have become. I am old and much more forgetful than I used to be, but I cannot think of another wrestler who went from one of my least favorite guys on the scene to one of my absolute favorites to watch. If Doc Brown had shown up at my house with a dot matrix print out of AEW's 23/24 roster and asked me to guess My Future Favorites, it would have been pretty easy to quickly pool Darby, Danielson, and Kingston. That hasn't changed. But I'm not sure how I would have explained to myself that in the future we will come to love Orange Cassidy. Liking Trent Beretta is one thing (I do), Wheeler Yuta is another (his improvement isn't a real shock I guess), but I really did not like Orange Cassidy. My hate for him was the kind of hate that was coupled with him as the masthead of a whole Type of wrestling I did not like. 

Every time I write about OC I am still framing it around my actual shock that he connects with me as much as he does, but I shouldn't be shocked anymore. It's been too consistent. I was probably on board with OC by the pandemic Jericho match, but that felt like me occasionally liking a Johnny Gargano match rather than me coming around on his style and gimmick. But now he is must watch for me, a perfect babyface. Maybe I like Jefferson Starship more than Pixies and that shifted my mental balance. Maybe my tastes have changed so much that I no longer recognize my tastes. I don't know. But I'm great at recognizing just what works for me, and he works. 

He's just an excellent babyface, and that's that. He defies the odds such, that here I am writing about a truly enjoyable match against one of the Top 50 IWRG Wrestlers of 2010 and plenty of Danhausen at ringside. If this is slop, I guess I'm a slop swiller now. I liked every little part, even the stupid stuff. I loved OC tying up Angelico's arms and the exhibition rope running and avoidance they started with, the fighting over Angelico keeping Cassidy's hands out of his pockets, and the 1-2 of Orange finally getting those hands in his pockets but hurting his knee while showing off. The pocket hands headscissors looked great, the knee buckle on the pocket hands kip-up perhaps even better. 

Angelico's work on Cassidy's knee was good, and I loved the way Cassidy was able to sell that leg convincingly while still hitting big offense. It's not easy to sell well while still building to the hot part of the match, and while I don't need every match to feature someone limping around and grabbing at their knee, I like when Cassidy does a limb selling match. Angelico had some great asshole stuff on OC's leg: running around the ring to kick his leg out, knocking him back on his face with an inside ankle kick after Orange had just fought to his feet, twisting hard into the Grapevine, and an awesome moment where he lifted Orange for a knee breaker and instead ran him knee first into the top turnbuckle (spinning him around nicely into a back suplex). Would I have wanted less of Danhausen and Serpentico at ringside? Probably. But I liked when Serpentico was throwing punches at Cassidy's kneecap, and the payoff to Danhausen punching Serpentico in the dick was well done. Angelico's fall after catching the Orange Punch right after is a beauty, takes it on the chin and goes sideways and stiff on the fall. I eat-a the slop now. It's delicious. 

2023 MOTY MASTER LIST