This Saturday night at FULL GEAR 2024, the future of All Elite Wrestling is at stake when 4-Time AEW World Champion Jon Moxley defends his title against 2-Time AEW International Champion Orange Cassidy. Now the last several months have witnessed a slow sea change to the landscape of All Elite Wrestling, but where exactly it started is quite difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps it was after REVOLUTION 2024 when “The Icon” Sting laced up his boots for the last time and AEW bid farewell to a man who served, in many ways, as a conscience for the locker room. Perhaps it was seeing The Young Bucks truly abuse their powers as EVPs for the first time since AEW's inception and watching them steal the vacant AEW World Tag Titles from FTR's grasp in large part due to “The Scapegoat” Jack Perry returning to the fold.
Follow that line and it could be when the new Elite of The Young Bucks, Jack Perry, and AEW Continental Champion Kazuchika Okada assaulted AEW CEO Tony Khan, or maybe it was when Adam Copeland went down with an injury at DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2024 thus leaving the TNT Championship vacant for the brothers Jackson to try and just award it to Jack Perry. Maybe it was when The Elite laid out Kenny Omega, a man who was like a brother to The Young Bucks, with little regard for his diverticulitis and what that assault could have done to the former AEW World Champion. It could've have been when Swerve Strickland defeated Samoa Joe at DYNASTY 2024 to claim the AEW World Title, or perhaps it was at ALL IN: LONDON 2024, with the future of his professional wrestling life on the line, when “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson defeated Swerve to finally claim the prize he'd been hunting since ALL OUT 2021.
There have been so many moments in 2024 that could be considered flashpoints for All Elite Wrestling, but perhaps the biggest one took place on the August 28th DYNAMITE in Champaign, IL when Jon Moxley returned to the AEW stage, now with Marina Shafir at his side, for the first time since losing the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship to Tetsuya Naito at FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024:
“It's going to take some time for everybody to wrap their brains around this, but we're going to start right now.”
Those were Moxley's words to Tony Schiavone after he beckoned for the attention of Darby Allin, the man who just one month prior earned himself a guaranteed World Championship match via victory in the Royal Rampage Battle Royale. Jon was right, it took some time to realize what he meant in that moment, but after the heinous assaulted perpetrated on Bryan Danielson at ALL OUT 2024, it was clear that no one was safe from whatever it was Moxley, Shafir, Claudio Castagnoli, and “The Bastard” PAC had in store for All Elite Wrestling.
Be it Private Party, Dark Order, Top Flight, or someone like Bryan who Moxley and Claudio called their brother for the better part of two years, there wasn't a soul in AEW that wasn't a target from this unit that has become known as The Death Riders. The intentions Moxley had for his original requested audience became clear when Darby was finally right in his face; he wanted that guaranteed World Championship match, and managed to convince Darby to lay it all on the line at DYNAMITE: GRAND SLAM 2024. The fact that Allin lost the match to Mox, thereby setting up the Moxley/Danielson clash at WRESTLEDREAM 2024, is a guilt that still eats at the 2-Time TNT Champion but one he will keep trying to rectify until there's no breath left in body.
Sadly it was the breath of Bryan Danielson that was stolen away first as, after Moxley defeated him at WRESTLEDREAM 2024 to become a 4-Time AEW World Champion, Wheeler Yuta made the choice to stand by Mox's side rather than Danielson's and...it led to the current situation where AEW has not heard from Bryan since October 12th, nor has he posted on any of his social media accounts. For all intents and purposes, based on Bryan's own promises, his full-time wrestling career is over, but it seems more appropriate that the “full-time” tag be removed and “over” be all that remains.
In the wake of that devastating loss to All Elite Wrestling, Jon Moxley and his soldiers have run roughshod over the locker room, decimating anyone brave enough to step up to the fight, seemingly in hopes of molding the men and women in AEW into the warriors Mox expects them all to be. The spoken intent of Blackpool Combat Club when it formed nearly three years ago was to mold the young men and women of AEW into the kind of fighters Moxley and Danielson thought they needed to be, and in Moxley's eyes it seems the action of The Death Riders are just a logical extension of that original mission statement.
Their actions caused Dark Order to rise up to the fight, brought a life to Private Party that led them to dethroning The Young Bucks as World Tag Champions at FRIGHT NIGHT DYNAMITE, fired up Action Andretti and Top Flight, and showed Daniel Garcia where he needed to be, as well as who he needed to fight. Conversely, the men who told the world they were the captains of this ship, the supposed Elite EVPs who spent most of 2024 telling everyone they knew what was best for AEW, well they tucked their tails and ran. Not only did The Young Bucks run out while hollering “we're working from home”, they left Brandon Cutler to the mercy of The Death Riders, abandoned fellow Elite members Jack Perry and Kazuchika Okada, and just confirmed to the world their true colors.
So while they ran and hid, those others mentioned rose up to the fight in one fashion or another, but there was one man that they were all looking towards for some leadership in this fight, the 2-Time International Champion, the man with the most matches in AEW as well as the most victories, “Freshly Squeezed” Orange Cassidy.
It took Claudio Castagnoli wrapping a chair around the head of Chuck Taylor and stomping down on it with the illest of intent, all while Wheeler Yuta watched on as his former trainer and friend was assaulted. Orange was just a few seconds too late to stop Chuck from suffering such grievous injury, but at least it lit the fire the rest of the AEW locker room had been hoping to see from OC in regards to Moxley.
Orange laid out the challenge at FRIGHT NIGHT DYNAMITE, chaos erupted from Moxley's response, and over the course of the last several weeks we've witnessed all hell break loose across All Elite Wrestling, much of it ending in Orange Cassidy suffering for his willingness to take challenge the self-proclaimed “one true king”. Just take he and Darby Allin's fight with Claudio Castagnoli and PAC as one example:
There have been a lot of words exchanged over the course of these last several weeks, a great deal of proclamations about what is going to happen this Saturday night at FULL GEAR 2024 when Moxley and Orange Cassidy step into the ring together. Take last week, as Moxley interrupted the DYNAMITE proceedings for a diatribe addressing his perceptions of just who Orange Cassidy is at heart:
Yet with all those words laid out on the table, the observations spoken to the AEW faithful as well as to the AEW locker room and between Mox and OC, what has mattered the most has been the actions taken, particularly those in the aftermath of Cassidy's victory over Wheeler Yuta this past Wednesday on DYNAMITE:
OC may have told The Conglomeration he needed to do this on his own, that he didn't want anyone else getting hurt because of what he is attempting to do, but that didn't stop them from being there to help Cassidy after he'd been duct taped and brutalized by Moxley and The Death Riders. Yet in the face of that assault, after Mark Briscoe cut him free, Cassidy rose back to his feet on his own power, eyes fixated on Moxley as he left through the crowd, defiantly putting his sunglasses back on, and reaching for the sky before sliding his hands down into his pockets. OC's knees may have buckled for a moment after that but the message was sent; no matter what the AEW World Champion did to him, Orange Cassidy was going to keep fighting and keep getting back up until there was no breath left in his body.
History shows he can achieve that goal; after all it was just one year ago at FULL GEAR 2023 in Los Angeles that Cassidy bloodied Moxley in their AEW International Championship match en route to retaining the title:
That was a tremendous moment for OC, proving he could defeat the man who'd ended his first historic International Championship reign at ALL OUT 2023, but now he's on the precipice of achieving something greater and with even more at stake than a championship title. Yes it is the most prestigious World Championship in professional wrestling Jon Moxley and Orange Cassidy are battling for this Saturday night, but it is also the future of AEW riding on the outcome of this match. Will it be Jon Moxley's vision for All Elite Wrestling that carries us all forward towards WORLDS END on December 28th, and perhaps into the already loaded 2025 event schedule? The future envisioned by Moxley and The Death Riders feels apocalyptic in scope, a perpetual Darwinian war in which everyone is perpetually tested to see if they live up to Moxley's standards.
That isn't the future OC wants for All Elite Wrestling, it isn't the future a majority of the AEW locker room want to experience either, and so they look to Orange Cassidy to bring them hope. After all, he is one of just nine men to hold a one-on-one victory over Jon Moxley here in All Elite Wrestling, and while others with that accolade say AEW doesn't need them right now, Orange Cassidy has stood up and taken the weight on his shoulders. Whether or not he walks out of the Prudential Center on Saturday night as the one wearing the crown remains to be seen, but at least Cassidy has shown it is possible to stand up to Jon Moxley and The Death Riders...
It's the leader of The Death Riders on a mission to reshape AEW into what he believes it should represent, a violent Darwinian realm where the mat wars weed out the weak, versus the vision that OC and others have where they aren't under constant threat from The Death Riders, and whatever weapon they may be wielding. There's a fundamental difference in what Moxley and crew want AEW to be, and what fighters like OC, Daniel Garcia, Dark Order, Top Flight, and others who've stood up to The Death Riders want from All Elite Wrestling. In Newark,NJ inside the confines of the Prudential Center while the world watches live on pay-per-view, FULL GEAR 2024 is undoubtedly a turning point for All Elite Wrestling, and it begins tonight at 8pm ET/7pm CT on PPV, with the ZERO HOUR getting underway at 6:30pm.