(Almost) 5-Star Match Reviews: Will Ospreay vs. Orange Cassidy – AEW Forbidden Door 2022

Will Ospreay has certainly gone through an incredible journey over the past decade. He was scouted by New Japan after getting rave reviews from Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, and AJ Styles. He became a polarizing figure from the moment he reached a major stage after having that absurd match with Ricochet that got him both praise and ire from different corners of the wrestling fandom. He took the world by storm as this weird mix between cruiserweight and heavyweight, later becoming too big for the former but still too small to be convincing as the latter. He has been showered with praise and accolades all over the world. And if the most notorious wrestling critic is to be believed/taken 100% seriously, then Ospreay is a better in-ring performer than pretty much every person to come before him.

So what better way for us to judge these claims for ourselves than by watching Will Ospreay compete against the wrestler that represents and symbolizes AEW more than any other?

The Story

As part of Forbidden Door’s “dream match” promotion, Will Ospreay and his United Empire stable attacked several AEW regulars in the weeks leading up to this show. Then on June 15^th, Ospreay won his first AEW singles match when he beat Dax Harwood. Not satisfied with simply winning, Ospreay and UE continued their beatdown on Harwood, his partner Cash Wheeler, and Roppongi Vice, until Orange Cassidy made the save. Shortly thereafter this match was confirmed, with the added stipulation that it would be for Ospreay’s IWGP US Title, which he had only won a few days earlier.

The Match

This took place on June 26, 2022. It was rated ****3/4 out of five by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.

This is for Ospreay’s IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. Ospreay rushes Cassidy but Cassidy dodges while keeping his hands in his pockets. Cassidy runs hands in pockets for a shoulder tackle but Ospreay bounces back up. Ospreay starts getting annoyed with the pockets thing and lands some quick take-downs but Cassidy kicks out easily, still with his hands in his pockets. Cassidy ducks a handspring and we get a pose-down. He pulls out one hand to do a thumbs-up gesture and Ospreay grabs his wrist. Cassidy actually does a semi-impressive chain escape sequence, ducks some clotheslines, and lands a double headscisssor takedown. Cassidy taunts Ospreay so Ospreay catches him on his shoulders and hotshots him onto the top rope and follows with a big boot. Ospreay dumps Cassidy ringside and plays to the crowd. Then he runs around the ring and, with the help of his United Empire stablemates, launches himself into Cassidy against the barricade.

Ospreay dumps Cassidy in the ring, lands a big chop, and hammer throws Cassidy into a corner. He follows with some sit-ups and a spinning pendulum backbreaker for a one-count. Ospreay lands some mocking strikes in a corner and lands another hammer throw followed by more mockery. Cassidy tries an Irish whip counter but Ospreay counters that with an abdominal stretch. Then Ospreay sticks his hand on Cassidy’s pocket and pulls out a middle finger. Okay, I’ll admit, that was good.

This angers Cassidy and he fires up and lands a hiptoss. Ospreay sends him into a corner but Cassidy lands on the apron, ducks an ax handle, and smashes Ospreay’s face into a turnbuckle. Ospreay counters a repeat attempt at first but Cassidy lands another buckle smash followed by a top-rope diving crossbody. Ospreay blocks an attempt at a satellite DDT and counters with his handspring enzuigiri followed by a diving elbow to the back of Cassidy’s head for a two-count.

Ospreay teases a Hidden Blade but Cassidy collapses forward. Ospreay answers with Kawada kicks and then he stomps on Cassidy’s neck. Cassidy fires up but Ospreay answers with more Kawada kicks. Cassidy gets to his feet and looks to be serious now (or as close to serious as he can be) and puts his hands in his pockets. Ospreay looks to be amused by all of this and slaps the taste out of Cassidy’s mouth. Cassidy answers with a hands-in-his-pockets running shotgun dropkick and both men go down…until Cassidy kips up.

Cassidy taps Ospreay with the lightest Kawada kicks ever so Ospreay fires back with an elbow. Cassidy answers back with a superkick that very clearly misses his face and then hits supposedly stiffer Kawada kicks that miss Ospreay’s head completely. Poor Dangerous K, reduced to a joke among pretenders thousands of miles away. Cassidy charges but Ospreay hits first with a hook kick. Cassidy dodges an Os-Cutter and lands a European clutch for two. Ospreay tries to deadlift/power out of another satellite DDT attempt but Cassidy counters that with a Dragon Kid-style lucha Stunner out of nowhere. Cassidy follows with a Michinoku Driver for another two-count.

Ospreay dodges a corner charge and sets up Cheeky Nandos but Cassidy kicks out and hits a moonsault press into a successful satellite DDT followed by a gentle topé suicida to the floor. Ospreay’s United Empire allies catch Cassidy’s feet as Ospreay distracts the referee. Cassidy kicks them back and hits a springboard corkscrew senton onto them. Cassidy climbs to the top rope and hits a Deep Impact diving DDT. One, two, th – Ospreay kicks out.

After some downtime Cassidy charges but runs into a standing Spanish Fly which gives Ospreay time to recover. He lands the Cheeky Nandos kick and then both guys struggle in a corner until Cassidy smashes Ospreay’s head into a camera perched atop a ringpost. Ospreay hits a back elbow out of instinct but then Cassidy starts playing possum on the mat. Cassidy thinks he has Ospreay outfoxed as he dodges a double moonsault attempt but then Ospreay lands with a forward shooting star splash. Ospreay follows with a springboard corkscrew press…and connects with Cassidy’s knees. Cassidy rolls over for a cradle but only gets a two-count. Ospreay floats out of another lariat into a powerbomb attempt. Cassidy escapes and lands his Beach Break/Air Raid Crash for another close two-count. Cassidy pulls off his elbow pad and charges for an Orange Punch…only for Ospreay to hit first with two Os-cutters…for another two-count. Cassidy ducks another Hidden Blade. Ospreay powers him up and attempts the Stormbreaker. Cassidy counters with a Frankensteiner for another near-fall. Ospreay hits a lariat and a Hidden Blade but only gets two so he follows up with the Stormbreaker. That’s enough for Ospreay to get the three-count and retain the title!

Winner and STILL IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion after 16:43: Will Ospreay

Review

I had low expectations of this given the fact that Orange Cassidy was involved, so imagine my shock when the match was actually decent. This wasn’t just Cassidy doing his lazy and silly gimmick to pop the niche and in-joke-obsessed live crowd. There was an actual story here with Cassidy annoying the ultra-serious Ospreay with his antics and then brushing off the Brit’s offense time and again. Ospreay got visibly angrier over time and eventually needed to go into overkill territory just to put Ospreay down. The story was fun while it lasted and we even got a flash of personality from Ospreay with the middle finger spot. Stuff like that shows that he can actually play a great dickhead heel which seems like a more natural fit for him.

But despite a few surprises this was still a letdown because it came off as such a time-waster. The thrown-together background coupled with NJPW pushing Ospreay as a freshly-crowned champion made his winning a foregone conclusion. The story they were trying to tell – Ospreay toying with Cassidy since he never saw him as an actual threat – got lost in the rudderless and convoluted action they put on. Cassidy executed some of his moves well (like the satellite DDT that he kept going for) but others missed the mark completely (like his Kawada kicks). Both the selling of moves and the selling of the story was inconsistent on both men’s parts. But most importantly, there was nothing novel or memorable about this match, at least not from Cassidy. The only one to really infuse any personality into this was Ospreay who made it crystal clear that Cassidy was beneath him by outdoing him in every conceivable way.

I recognize that some people like Cassidy for his detached demeanor and Ospreay for his MOVEZ spam which is why many of them reacted to loudly to the craziness happening in the ring. But I just couldn’t take Cassidy seriously or believe that anything he does actually hurt. He made Ospreay look like Triple H in comparison size-wise. When he “fired up” and got angry he looked completely unthreatening and hard to believe that he could or would actually damage anyone or anything. If he wanted to show off his lucha skills then he should’ve just dusted off his CHIKARA attire and wrestled as a luchador instead. The whole pockets thing is a ridiculous idea that’s given life by a bunch of mavericks that want their favorite wrestling show to remain niche and appeal to their narrow tastes and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t see Cassidy as all that entertaining. I ended up enjoying Ospreay more even though he was clearly meant to be the bad guy in this match.

Final Rating: ***

This was fine but a complete misuse of Ospreay’s talents. The guy has been pushed to the moon both by promoters and by fans as the new wunderkind of wrestling and here he was wrestling a competitive match with a skinny and unimposing lowercarder for over fifteen minutes. Say what you want about the visual spectacle of the match but that is not a formula for generating success. Even though everyone on the planet knows wrestling is predetermined there are still plenty that want to believe that things could be real and want to get behind someone. They can’t do so if said person has no credibility or just wrestles long and competitive matches just for the sake of showing off. That’s what this was: Cassidy showing off against a guy who, by all rights, should’ve crushed him underfoot and destroyed him in under five minutes.

As much as some people might not want to admit it, pro-wrestling in North America is very story-heavy and just putting on a cold action-packed match on its own doesn’t sell here as much as it does elsewhere. Both the story behind this match and whatever story was told in the ring were either too threadbare to get into or too absurd to follow, unless you’re one of those dedicated fans with enough time and energy to look things up for yourself. And as long as AEW and Tony Khan think that successful booking is smashing two clocks together and seeing which pieces fall together, the company will keep spinning its wheels as an increasingly distant #2 company in North America.

Thanks for reading.