Orange Cassidy responds to those who say he’s ‘insulting pro wrestling’: Katsuyori Shibata wanted to work with me

Cassidy mentions the NJPW World Television Champion as someone he’d like to wrestle. 

At the first AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door event, Orange Cassidy went one-on-one with Will Ospreay. As Cassidy was being ambushed by United Empire, coming out for the save was Katsuyori Shibata

Later in the year, Cassidy and Shibata went one-on-one on the November 4th episode of Rampage and Cassidy defeated Shibata to retain the AEW International Championship, formerly known as the All-Atlantic Title. 

Cassidy reflected on working with Shibata while speaking to the TWC Show. He responded to those who say he’s ‘insulting pro wrestling’ by saying Shibata wanted to work with him. Orange added that it was an honor. 

As you know, there are a lot of people that don’t care for me, that don’t care about what I’m doing, they don’t like what I’m doing, they don’t appreciate it. They think I’m insulting professional wrestling or whatever you wanna call it, and then there is a living legend and a phenomenal professional wrestler in (Katsuyori) Shibata. He said he wanted, on his return, because he actually almost died doing what he does in the ring and when he came back and was able to wrestle, he mentioned two people and one of them was Bryan Danielson and the other one was me and I don’t think people understand that. I never thought that a person of that stature would even consider me for something like that and it was truly an honor and I barely beat him. I was terrified because he is Shibata. But because of that, Shibata and I actually played Roulette last night so, we’re friends.

He was asked what talent from NJPW would he want to work with if it was up to him. Orange named the NJPW World Television Champion Zack Sabre Jr. 

If it was up to me, yeah sure (who he’d want to face from NJPW). Let’s just say, I don’t wanna wrestle Will (Ospreay) again because he — that was rough. Hey, I don’t know if you know this but Will’s very good at wrestling. He’s phenomenal… But I do think there’s another phenomenal wrestler that I really — he’s carrying around the New Japan Television Championship and I wrestle a lot on TV too and I would love if I could get in there with Zack Sabre Jr. and show a little different stuff that you normally wouldn’t see from me.

At Double or Nothing this Sunday, Cassidy’s title defense is going to be in a Blackjack Battle Royal that will feature 21 talents. 

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the TWC Show with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions. 

About Andrew Thompson 8004 Articles
A Washington D.C. native and graduate of Norfolk State University, Andrew Thompson has been covering wrestling since 2017.