Orange Cassidy Discusses His Recovery From Pectoral Injury, Pressure Of Being Back On TV

Orange Cassidy made his return to AEW TV late last month, and he recently opened up about his difficult recovery process and how he’s feeling now. Cassidy returned to the ring on the September 24th episode of Dynamite after six months off due to injury. He spoke about his recovery and more in an interview on Off The Ropes with Jonathan Coachman, and you can see some highlights below (per Fightful):

On his recovery and being back in the ring: “It didn’t feel great. This injury that I had, the torn pec, it was the longest I’d ever went in my 20-something-year wrestling career that was longer than three months of an injury so, it took me about six and a half months. So this is like the longest I’ve gone without stepping in the ring, and the first thing they do when I come back is, ‘Okay, do a little six-man with The Conglomeration.’ ‘Oh, that’s great. I’m having a good time.’ Then it’s, ‘Okay, Kyle Fletcher. Singles match, have a good time,’ and then it’s like, ‘Oh, you know that guy you wrestled all the time who’s your biggest rival? Yeah, yeah, go have a match with him too.’ ‘Okay, okay, great.’ You know what? I got those out of the way so, if I can handle those, who cares what’s next?”

On feeling the pressure of being a featured performer on AEW TV again: “Yeah. I mean, always, especially, starting in the early days in AEW, no one had any expectations for me… It was just like, ‘Oh, he’s the funny guy. He puts his hands in his pockets and does some stuff,’ and then I started wrestling, and then I started wrestling a little bit more, and then I wrestled more and then I become a champion for however long — many months — and then twice over, and now, I have the expectation of, hey, are you gonna do that again? And it’s like, I really wish people knew how little thought I have about what the future holds for me. I literally just show up and do what’s in front of me. I don’t think about anything. I do feel the pressure though of being that television wrestler that I was before. But luckily, we have the amount of talent we have surrounding us and the amount of talent we get to wrestle against, it makes things a little easier.”