4 Ups & 6 Downs From AEW Dynamite (1 Mar - Review)

Ups...

4. A Fun Opener

Orange Cassidy remains the most misunderstood wrestler in the business.

Actually, that isn't true. People just pretend to misunderstand him because bad faith podcasting is a lucrative racket and people like to shape their identity around hating AEW because it offends them for some reason. Elsewhere, this week's edition of Dynamite was either offensively bad or inoffensively mid, but the opener was an intelligently crafted bit of business.

Cassidy did not taunt Big Bill early, thereby putting him over as a threat. He knew better. Instead, he repeatedly ducked out of the ring, orchestrating a louder crowd response each time. His antics eventually caught up with him when Bill was wise to one of his chess moves. Cassidy ate a chokeslam through a table with a satisfying crunch.

As an inherently great pure wrestler, Cassidy built his comeback brilliantly and the giant was slain with a desperate, dense barrage of his signature arsenal. Cassidy deployed a tried and true cheat code to protect Bill with an avalanche variation of the Orange Punch that completed his multiple finish combo. He sold the rib injury in the post-match.

This - regrettably - was not the end of Cassidy's night.