10 Early Gimmicks From Famous Wrestlers You Won't Believe
2. Orange Cassidy
Orange Cassidy's entire bit is genius.
A slacker with a look so cool and distinctive that many of his fans dress up at him when attending AEW shows, his trick, and it still works some three years into his major league run, is that he knows precisely when to fire up. When to try.
In his major matches, he lulls more respected and cynical performers into various traps and electrifies the audience with the awesome dissonance of his act. The man who can't even be bothered to do a thumbs up launching into Kawada kicks is incredible dramatic escalation, and there's even a sweet, in-character element to it as well. He's never been more passionate as when, like a good Best Friend, he urged Kris Statlander to fire up and make the comeback against Britt Baker at All Out '21.
It is with some irony, then, that he played the role of 'Fire Ant' in CHIKARA. A sensational movez artist with offensive stretches that were, fittingly, ablaze, traces of Fire Ant's DNA can be found in the Cassidy character - it's just that, as a great and old-fashioned worker, he knows precisely when to unleash these flurries at 38 years old to maximise their impact. It's also unbelievable that Cassidy mostly worked under a mask for over a decade because he's a handsome man.
What is it with wrestling super hunks and their insistence on hiding their faces?!