AEW’s Jon Moxley and Orange Cassidy are more than career rivals, dimetric opposites, foils, etc. Despite their distinct aesthetics and wrestling styles, these characters are, underneath it all, two sides of the same coin. They are so apart and yet so equally weighted on their respective ends of the spectrum that the line bends and forms a circle. Moxley and Cassidy stand back-to-back with each other. Touching, as if they are about to begin pacing before another brutal duel.
If someone handed me a picture of each man and told me that Corporate needed me to tell them apart, I would say they are the same.
Moxley is unrelenting. A dog with a bone who refuses to give up. His determination to never take that vacation superficially appears philosophically opposed to Cassidy’s slow, intense, and effortless outlook. Yet, like Moxley, when was the last time you remember Cassidy taking it easy?
Both characters use mind games in their words and actions. Weekly, they show physical prowess with a routine set of moves, but each has plenty of tricks to deploy as needed. Weekly, win or lose, they show near superhuman resilience, etc.
Separately, and together, they reflect a modern Western culture problem of the work/life balance. Both are workaholics. Despite their differences, each ultimately pursues the same coping method. Like many of us, they can’t stop grinding. Even if that means for their characters and men, the risk of physical burnout. For us, the fans, emotional and character burnout.
Jon Moxley: Borderline Caricature
The uniqueness of Jon Moxley, like that of Orange Cassidy, cuts both ways. Whilst Moxley, and I would argue, Cassidy, represent paradigm shifts in modern wrestling, each is paradoxical.
Before leaving WWE, Jon Moxley was an ironman workhorse. Competing at events and house shows relentlessly. It’s nothing new that, in AEW, Moxley literally worked himself back to health after injuries in 2025 by grinding through them.
So much about Moxley, the character and wrestler, is almost unbelievable. In the modern era, few wrestlers can feel as dangerous as Moxley. Few wrestlers feel as badass as Mox. It’s both an attraction and an enduring throwback. In his autobiography, Mox discusses breaking down his love of action films like Point Break. Moxley presents himself like a 90s action hero. Like Patrick Swayze’s Bodhi, Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man, or currently Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper.
The badassery, the lack of weakness, appears in the ring weekly or in menacing barbed-wire-laced promos. Regardless of whether Moxley is face or heel or in between, you know what you’re getting. Hard-hitting matches. Maybe some blood and claw marks. Opponents might look like valiant warriors, even in defeat. Those who beat him are all conquering heroes.
Moxley’s nonstop commitment has made him a symbol. The embodiment of the alternative to WWE. More than human. And that is where fatigue comes in.
At times, that presentation, that indestructibility, can become too Hollywood, too fictional, losing its grit and authenticity. Listening to Moxley’s audiobook, it still felt hard to distinguish between Moxley’s character and the man. Both are so tightly intertwined. So hyper-focused, relentless, and black-and-white is Moxley at times, that this 90s action/anti-hero persona feels too true to be real. At worst, Mox can feel like a caricature when overexposed.
Orange Cassidy: Slacker Who Can’t Lack
Like Moxley, Cassidy combines the new with the old. Mox an old school brawler in a modern fighter’s body. Cassidy is modern irony and memefied culture with traditional wrestling psychology at his core, as Jesse Collins has previously written.
Cassidy tells traditional wrestling stories with a slacker persona, where the joke is that we know he’s not a slacker. What makes him a fan favorite is the character development. Cassidy can’t slack. See, as much as Cassidy wants to slack, converse energy and not try, it’s perhaps part head games, part disguise. The aviators hide a clever trap. They create a layer of deception about Cassidy’s abilities. Like an aikido expert, Cassidy capitalizes on opponents’ mistakes.
Cassidy might be funny, but he’s equal parts Charlie Chaplin slapstick as he is Die Hard’s John McClane in spirit. Like McClane, Cassidy reacts; he’s rarely proactive. Cassidy quips and does his best through dangerous situations while making quips about being tired. Like McClane in later films, when the character is all about the grind and actions, rather than the substance and character development, Orange becomes a reductive caricature like Mox.
The overachiever’s underdog status has at times felt artificial when his character’s lack clear direction. A wrestler capable of greatness once he applied himself, Cassidy’s first AEW International Championship reign saw Cassidy go from passive to actively, by his own volition, try and then embody what it means to be a champion. But the stunted second reign due to creative scrabbling after Moxley became injured and periods where the reliance has been on gags and moments rather than character motivation have seen the ironic joke that Cassidy cannot get off the hamster wheel feel stationary, rather than dynamic.
Paradox of the Grind
Both wrestlers constant presence on AEW programming each week. Their commitment, the personal stories they have told together and with others, resonates. It’s made them beloved by fans. Yet over time, that enduring commitment has resulted in fan fatigue and character stagnation. Repetition and a lack of change in their characters, card position or stories have at times made some fans want them to do something different or take a break.
Simultaneously, they can feel vital to AEW programming, but also auxiliary. It’s the paradox of the grind. It’s desensitization. The novelty and specialness wean to normality, to at worst, cliché. More is not always rewarded with more. Rather, expectations change.
Yet it’s more than familiarity breeds content. It’s that the character’s core values and appeal, through repetition and loss of narrative focus, suffer from the same problems many film franchises suffer: franchise fatigue.
Characterization Can’t Be Sustained
Although I’ll always retain respect for Moxley’s commitment and ability, I’ve at times wanted Moxley to take that vacation. In the early days of the Death Riders, I became apathetic to Moxley’s character and crew. It was more than the promo style and action, feeling like a bingo card of cliches with their predictabilities. The Flanderized version of Mox focused on his symbolism rather than character. Moxley as a surrogate for AEW’s historic trauma of adjusting after Brawl Out. Rather than moving to a new paradigm, it was the old played-out company narrative instead of a personal one.
It’s only after that story was complete and through trial and re-establishing character. Moxley went from Patrick Bateman or Tyler Durden- a cool but incredibly flawed and unrealistic nonsensical character, back to something more human. During the Continental Classic, AEW saved Moxley rather than the other way around.
At times, AEW creative has slacked with Cassidy’s characterization, or just been too opaque. Cassidy has at times become one-note and Flanderized without a purpose, like Moxley, when the story has just been having great matches on repeat. Bangers without motivation, a personal story, or even a credible external threat/opposition that pushed Orange to react.
For example, the incredibly Texas Death match between Cassidy and Matt Tavern on a Dynamite pre-revolution 2024, felt an unnecessary, unjustified risk for a champion in the process of physically breaking down. Although the match was incredible, it also felt a bit like a randomized contest the AI would generate on a booking simulator. The stakes were not justified, even if the chants of “this is awesome” were. Instead, just relying on “it’s wrestling” logic as the reason for Cassidy to fight, rather than internal, character-driven motivation. Which undercut the underdog persona.
Burnout is Real
Although our fandom is often characterized as self-hating, self-loathing, never happy, and demeaning, even when it’s true, it’s short-sighted shorthand to sidestep legitimate discussion. Fans can get burned out on wrestlers, even though they love them most. Even ones that resonate. We, as fans, get burnt out in a culture that has normalized burnout in our work culture.
I’ll admit, there is some psychological projection going on here. As a writer who feels burned out, I conceptualized this article with a “eureka moment” in the bathroom. On a brief rest/escapist break between my main day job and a literal after-school job.
There are two wolves inside me that battle philosophically, fighting over how I perceive the daily grind of work and the struggles of adult life. One who dedicates themselves to the jobs they love enjoys the routine, even the bumps in the road and the learning experiences. The other is just so tired, Renee. That wolf with aviators often struggles to work smarter rather than harder.
Even if you, in fact, love what you do, the grind still grinds you. Even when you love something like pro wrestling, the overexposure or creative oversights do burn out fans and smooth away the interesting edges we loved about characters like Moxley and Cassidy. But those edges or new ones can be added with time.
In their Sisyphean persistence, we’ve seen both characters, as well as many others in AEW, from The Young Bucks to Chris Jericho, get lost, unable to see the woods from the trees, and eventually find their way back to our favor.
When Grinding is Your Identity
Through promos about hard work, grinding through pain, the mythos surrounding training, first with the Blackpool Combat Club and then the Death Riders, Moxley defines his identity through the work. It’s not a badge of honor, it’s the aura Moxley shrouds himself in.
Moxley is so close to embodying the real-world problematic and often toxic hypermasculinity of alpha-male competition, without its predatory sense of entitlement or superiority. In a world of false influencers, Moxley appears the real deal. This is why, despite even periods of stagnation and repetition, where Moxley might bleed weekly or seem more cartoon cat than man, many of us love and stick with him. We ride out the grind with Moxley because, as history shows, he’ll always find his way back to our admiration.
The irony of Cassidy is that in trying not to conform, OC still jumps through life’s flaming hoops, just with his hands in his pockets. Cassidy does it his own way, but like looking at a swan on the water, it’s easy to miss the legs paddling furiously beneath. Cassidy embodies the irony of a culture that focuses on the appearance of ease and relaxation, but that image requires work to maintain.
Like Cassidy, I can find myself forced to conform, but likewise, I try to do it in my own style.
