2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Cassidy vs. Moriarty

 

11. Orange Cassidy vs. Lee Moriarty AEW Rampage 2/8 (Aired 2/10/23)

ER: I've never been a Lee Moriarty Guy. I didn't use to be an Orange Cassidy Guy, and then one day I realized I had become an Orange Cassidy Guy. It doesn't always work but I root for it to work much more than I used to. So I'm an Orange Guy but not yet a Lee Guy. For 5 or 6 years now Lee Moriarty has done a mechanically sound recreation of a style I have grown tired of seeing; a guy doing a Technical Wrestler gimmick with the precise hollowness that the Smooth Technical Wrestler gimmick requires. Did the acting get better from both, to the point I eventually grew to like each of their styles? Maybe. I think their styles have grown and evolved and now they're both just better versions of the guys they were when I didn't like watching them wrestle. 

I'm not ready to call myself a Moriarty Guy just yet but I can say this match is the most I've liked him in a match. There's still a theatrical disconnect there in the application of every single thing, so it's a lot of faces and ham, but now his stuff has a much better combination of painful application and stiffness so that it overshadows the times it veers into mechanically technical. Cassidy brought even more ham with a match-long arm sell that was aggressively present in a way that I appreciated but wish we actually saw less. Most of this match is Orange Cassidy shaking out his arm like his hand was stuck in a hornet's nest, pervasive enough that it felt like a waiter topping off your coffee too often, not understanding the rhythm of too much or not enough Checking In. You were getting constantly topped off coffee and mostly avoiding eye contact while saying a sincere but progressively muttered Thank You. 

But all of Moriarty's stuff stretching out and bending at Cassidy's arm looked painful and Cassidy's athleticism gives him fun ways to fight out of snug holds. Moriarty has good elbows and strikes while working holds now, and he has a real gas tank. Like Cassidy selling the arm too dedicatedly, Moriarty comes off probably too active. But they both work this like limb shaking overactive spazzes and I'll take hyperactivity when it leads to Moriarty getting spiked by two different awesome tornado DDTs and weird spots like Cassidy climbing all over him like a sleeperhold spider monkey. I like how Moriarty goes floppy limbed on tightly timed late kickouts, and the way he flops too much for bumps. When there's actual honesty to the holds and leveraged pins, the hyperactivity adds to the game. Maybe I am a Moriarty Guy now. Maybe it only clicked for me this one time. That's fine. I click with a Natalya match every couple years and maybe Moriarty fills that Natalya Niche. 

I can't see a future where I suddenly find out I'm a Danhausen Guy, but I guess that's why we watch this shit. Maybe I'll be a Danhausen Guy next week I don't fucking know. 

2023 MOTY MASTER LIST