Orange Cassidy discusses his reign as the AEW International Champion.
Cassidy defeated PAC to win the AEW All-Atlantic Championship (which was later renamed the International Championship) on the October 12, 2022, episode of AEW Dynamite. He has defended the title on numerous occasions since then. Cassidy previously noted that he didn't know what to do with the title when he won it, but he has elevated it by competing in a number of remarkable bouts.
Speaking with Jack Farmer of Wrestling Inc. ahead of AEW Double or Nothing, Cassidy was asked about his reign as a fighting champion and whether it was his idea to defend the title practically every week. Cassidy noted that it wasn't his idea, and he repeated his belief that the title didn't have an identity when he won it.
"I'll tell you what wasn't my idea to get beat up every single week and defend this thing. When I got the All-Atlantic Championship in October, the idea was just really to beat Pac, and just finally get that win over him. And along with it came the All-Atlantic Championship and I didn't really know what this title meant. I didn't know what it was for. I didn't really understand... It didn't have an identity really, but it did have a lineage already of Pac who is obviously one of the best wrestlers in the world," Cassidy said.
Cassidy went on to describe how he realized he wanted to use the championship as a tool to get other competitors on television and give deserving contenders title shots. In doing so, he hoped to showcase the different styles of wrestling that AEW has to offer. Cassidy highlighted the wide variety of talent that AEW has available and stated that he'd beat them all in order to retain the gold.
"To live up to that, I ain't got nothing to prove to anybody. I'm going to do what I'm going to do. It's going to be what I want to do. But when I had the Independent Wrestling Championship early in my career on the Indies, I had this philosophy of, if you want a shot, I'll give it to you. And I think I wanted to use this as a tool to get people on television that you normally wouldn't see on television. Maybe somebody that works really, really hard that deserves a title shot. And I decided to make this title the belt that everybody else who wasn't ranked number one could go after and show different styles, show different wrestling, show the wide variety of fantastic talent that AEW has. It's just unfortunate that I'll have to punch them all in the face to win this back. It was something I stumbled upon. I didn't really set out to do that, it's just what happened," Cassidy said.
Cassidy defeated Swerve Strickland to retain the title on the June 7 episode of AEW Dynamite. Catch up on our coverage of the show here.
Click here to check out the card for the June 9 episode of AEW Rampage. Fightful will have coverage of the show as it airs.
On the June 14 episode of AEW Dynamite, Cassidy will compete in an eight-man tag team match. More information is available here.
