Orange Cassidy Facts That Only Hardcore Fans Know

Orange Cassidy is one of the most unique, hilarious, and surprising gimmicks to emerge in the wrestling world in quite some time. On the surface, he's the "King of Sloth Style" with his unassuming presence and dry wit. In reality, the man born James Cipperly is ridiculously athletic and can throw down against any opponent, with or without his hands in his pockets.

When you think about it, "Freshly Squeezed" and his whole aesthetic is actually a moving allegory on just trying to live. Life is hard and often exhausting. Half the things people have to do in order to survive they don't want to do. But when your back is against the wall, you dig deep and find the strength to get the job done. Simply put: Sometimes, you just got to try, even when you don't really feel like it.

The fact that we large amount of research on him seems like the antithesis of his entire existence, but here are 12 facts only hardcore fans know about Orange Cassidy. Enjoy ... or whatever.

Orange Cassidy entered the mainstream wrestling conversation thanks to AEW, but he's been around for at least a decade prior to becoming #AllElite. Nevertheless, there seems to be some discrepancy as to when he first graced us with his lethargy.

In a piece from ESPN.com about him being wrestling's male breakout star of 2020, the outlet says the Orange Cassidy gimmick debuted in 2010. However, Cagematch.net lists the first appearance of Cassidy took place during a six-man tag team elimination match at a July 2007 show for Valley Championship Wrestling in Mountain Top, Pennsylvania.

One thing that isn't up for debate is the fact that for regardless how long he's been around, Cassidy has always had to work to win people over. Chuck Taylor touched on this strange phenomenon telling ESPN.com, "This has been happening for legit 10 years now. And my favorite part of it is having been at shows with him this long and watching crowds hate him and be very confused by him ... and not in a good way."

Inspiration can come from the most random of moments. When it comes to the idea of the Orange Cassidy gimmick, it seems to have come from the 2001 cult classic film "Wet Hot American Summer," which is set in a summer camp in 1981. The film has an all-star cast of Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Molly Shannon, Christopher Meloni, Elizabeth Banks, Amy Poehler and Bradley Cooper in his film debut. Also in the film was Paul Rudd, who played Andy, a denim-clad camp counselor who is not fond of effort or doing much of anything. Sounds a bit familiar, right? It's not a coincidence that during the November 23, 2022 episode of "Dynamite" a fan was spotted holding a sign that read, "Wet Hot American Summer 0:24:34." That time stamp shows Andy in cutoff jean shorts sitting on a lake dock saying "Ah, whatever."

The "Wet Hot American Summer" connection helps explain why Orange Cassidy used Jefferson Starship's 1979 single "Jane" as his entrance theme on the indies. The song plays during the film's opening credit scene showing the camp counselors partying by a bonfire. "Jane" was finally unveiled as Cassidy's AEW theme during "Dynamite: Blood & Guts" in June 2022 after Tony Khan finally secured the rights to use the song.

Cassidy has had to work to win over fans for years, but it seems as though the most important person he's won over is AEW president and CEO Tony Khan. Cassidy told ESPN.com that The Young Bucks were the ones to help get him on Khan's radar as he was assembling the promotion's roster. Of course, the fact that Cassidy is, in his own words, "a giant middle finger to professional wrestling" likely helped with his appeal to the AEW boss, but Khan still had his reservations.

"[After Double or Nothing,] I spent a lot of time with Orange Cassidy and got to know him a lot better, and also talked to him about ideas, and that opened a lot of doors for both of us," Khan said to ESPN.com. "I had no idea what an intelligent person Orange Cassidy is, and he is very, very smart. And really, I had no idea how well-thought-out this all was."

Orange Cassidy was in college during the early years of his wrestling career. During that time, he earned a bachelor's degree in architecture from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2007.

If you have a hard time believing "Freshly Squeezed" is actually an architect, there is proof. In the "About" section on the website for the Princeton Design Guild, there a link to download the design company's brochure. On page four, there's a photo of five men. The man in the middle is Kevin Wilkes, who founded the company in 1985. To his right is a smiling Orange Cassidy sans-sunglasses and identified by his legal name of James Cipperly.

The company's brochure is filled with photos from past projects highlighting their specialty of home design, which includes some very chic kitchens. A profile for Cipperly on ZoomInfo also lists him working as a project coordinator for the home design website Houzz. ZoomInfo shows he stopped working for Princeton Design Guild and Houzz in 2020, so the fact he's still featured in Princeton Design Guild's brochure is interesting. Could he still find time away from the ring to contribute to a home project?

Before AEW, Orange Cassidy was best known for his nearly decade-and-a-half of work with CHIKARA where he'd eventually serve as a trainer for the promotion's wrestling school appropriately named the Wrestle Factory. Before debuting as Cassidy in 2012 in the promotion, he went by the short-lived ring name of J.C. Ryder. As Cassidy, he was among familiar company as a member of the faction called The Gentlemen's Club. The faction was founded by Chuck Taylor and included Drew Gulak and The Swamp Monster.

Cassidy's most notable in-ring presence in CHIKARA was as the masked wrestler Fire Ant, who was one of the original members of the stable called The Colony. Due to traditional kayfabe, Cassidy has rarely, if ever, publicly talked about his many years as Fire Ant, who debuted in 2006 alongside fellow masked wrestler Soldier Ant, who was actually Gulak. The Colony is the only team to win CHIKARA's King of Trios tournament twice, but there were different lineups for each win, with the exception of Fire Ant, making him the only wrestler to be part of two winning King of Trios teams.

Before being purchased by WWE, Evolve had a working relationship with the sports entertainment giant that involved some NXT talent participating in various events. For Evolve 123 taking place in March 2019 in Massachusetts, a poll was set up on Twitter asking fans to vote for who should face Ricochet at the show. Cassidy won in a landslide receiving 61.8% of the vote against Shane Strickland and AR Fox, who received 27.6% and 10.6%, respectively. Plenty of notable names in wrestling were reacting on Twitter to the news of the match. Among them were future AEW referees Aubrey Edwards and Bryce Remsburg. Edwards wrote, "MOTY contender. Dream match. Whatever you want to call it, this might be the best thing in wrestling ever." Remsburg added, "It's definitely a wise use of my carryover PTO at work to drive to Boston to buy a ticket to see this with my own eyes, right?"

Days after the match was confirmed, Ricochet was unfortunately pulled from the event, with Sports Illustrated citing "his increased main roster schedule." Ricochet was replaced with Velveteen Dream, who at the time just became NXT North American Champion. The match main evented Evolve 123, with Dream defeating Cassidy. The match is available in its entirety on YouTube.

The backstory of Orange Cassidy is rather mysterious. After all, he is billed being from "wherever" and weighing "whatever." That didn't stop Cageside Seats from talking to Chuck Taylor, Bryce Remsburg and Dan Barry for an "oral history" piece published in March 2019 that examined Cassidy who they dubbed "the hottest enigma in independent wrestling."

The whole piece is obviously very tongue-in-cheek with many actually laugh-out-loud lines. For example, when asked whether he's ever traveled with Cassidy to show, Barry responded, "OC doesn't travel like you or I. He just appears places." As for what Cassidy would be doing if he weren't a wrestler, Remsburg said, "Adult dancing. You'd be surprised. He can move." Taylor, who's one of Cassidy's closest friends, had a unique response when asked what else is in his infamous backpack that he uses to carry championship belts: "Most likely multiple VHS copies of 'The Sandlot' and some apple sauce."

The coronavirus pandemic was a difficult time for wrestling and pretty much any other industry that is reliant on live audiences. AEW made lemonade out of lemons during that period with one of the notable feuds being Orange Cassidy vs. Chris Jericho. The feud had a variety of funny segments, but the funniest of them all was a presidential-style debate that was moderated by Eric Bischoff on "Dynamite." During the debate, Bischoff asked Cassidy multiple questions where he didn't give a response. Bischoff eventually asked Cassidy a complicated question about rising sea levels, which OC answered in surprising detail similar to the debate scene in 2003's "Old School."

Jericho later talked about that moment on an October 2020 episode of "Insight with Chris Van Vliet." He said the whole bit came together shortly before "Dynamite" went live adding, "Cody [Rhodes] came up with the idea of doing some ridiculous scientific stuff on climate change. I wrote down some stuff that I Googled about what climate change was. I gave that to Orange and we made it up three or four hours before the show ... This is how we do it. It is a bunch of talented people. You don't need a script. You don't need to pore over it for hours and hours. That doesn't make it better. It makes it worse."

Orange Cassidy is the type of wrestler that doesn't necessarily "need" a championship title, but considering his massive popularity, it seems like a lost opportunity not to make him some sort of champion. On the October 12, 2022 episode of "Dynamite," Cassidy won his first title in AEW defeating PAC for the AEW All-Atlantic Championship after previously being defeated by "The Bastard" during another title match at "Dynamite: Grand Slam" on September 10, 2022.

For those paying very close attention, OC had quietly amassed a number of title opportunities up until that win, which was his ninth title match in AEW. Cassidy challenged for the AEW TNT Championship on four different occasions against Mr. Brodie Lee, twice against Cody, and against Wardlow. Cassidy also took part in an epic triple threat match against PAC and defending champion Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship at 2021's Double of Nothing. Additionally, Cassidy challenged Will Ospreay for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship at AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door in June 2022. Lastly, Cassidy and Best Friends challenged Death Triangle for the AEW World Trios Titles on "Dynamite" on September 7, 2022. That's quite a lot of chances for a man who might not try.

Injuries are very common in wrestling, but they usually don't happen the way that The Butcher almost wrecked Orange Cassidy. Before they broke up, The Butcher was the rhythm guitarist for the band Every Time I Die. During one of the band's annual hometown holiday shows in Buffalo, New York, Orange Cassidy was in attendance and had a good amount to drink. He drunkenly asked for The Butcher to throw him from the stage into the crowd. Despite being apprehensive about it, The Butcher obliged. Unfortunately, The Butcher's throw fell short and resulted in Cassidy hitting the fan barricade.

The Butcher recounted the whole incident on a September 2020 episode of the "AEW Unrestricted" podcast. He said he looked at the gap between the stage and crowd and thought, "I don't know if I can clear this. It's far!" When he saw OC hit the barricade, he said, "I thought, 'I literally just killed AEW's biggest star!'" The Butcher added, "I was so scared. I remember reaching down in the pit from under his armpits and picking him up like a baby and being like, 'Oh my God! Are you okay?' He was like, 'I'm drunk. It's okay, dude! I'm the CHIKARA guy people throw into walls. It's fine.'" In the following days, The Butcher continued to check in with Cassidy to make sure he was okay, and fortunately, he was.

It hasn't been talked about on AEW programming, but some light searching on the internet will yield a number of examples of Orange Cassidy talking about how much he loves the "Fast & Furious" film franchise. In a documentary short titled "The Comedy in Wrestling: Orange Cassidy," he's asked how he got into wrestling. Instead of answering the question, OC starts talking about stealing cars and "tricking them out." He then adds, "We got mixed up with the law, and then The Rock came," which is basically the plot of 2011's "Fast Five."

Wrestlers have used Cassidy's fandom of "Fast & Furious" to get under his skin. After a quick pinfall at Beyond Wrestling's Americanrana 19, R.D. Evans got Cassidy to start another match right away by telling him the film franchise sucks and that, "'Fast Five' was the worst one! The movies got worse when The Rock showed up!"

OC continues to reference the "Fast & Furious" franchise on social media. Once, he shared an ad for an upcoming episode of "Dynamite" on Twitter and captioned it, "Hopefully there's a 'Fast and Furious' movie on right before or after." Over on TikTok, he playfully wrote, "I'm making my own 'Fast and Furious' movie. Here's the trailer." The "trailer" was a video of Danhausen riding around in a motorized scooter while still healing from a leg injury.

Orange Cassidy very rarely breaks character or does interviews outside of his "Freshly Squeezed" persona, but he did just that during an August 2022 interview with the "Absolute Geek Podcast" at San Diego Comic Con. Cassidy talked at length about what it means to him being a prominent wrestler in AEW that has helped bring more viewers to the promotion. He mentioned how fans tell him at conventions or meet and greets about how they will show one of his matches to someone they know that doesn't watch wrestling, and they become an instant fan of his.

"For me, I'm like, 'I'm doing my job,'" said Cassidy. "I love professional wrestling, obviously enough, that I'm gonna wrestle when I have to. I think everyone should enjoy that. I want everyone to feel included, so if I'm a little part of that to help bring everyone together ... I'm into it. That's great."