📼Tape Study📼: Canadian Destroyers Used To Be Epic
Let's learn about wrestling, moves, matches, and stories! Marie Shadows reviews Orange Cassidy vs Penta from AEW Dynamite in the newest Tape Study Issue.
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Orange Cassidy has been AEW International Champion since October 12, 2022. He faced Penta El Zero Miedo (The Zero Fear) last night on AEW Dynamite. We’re going to be looking at and breaking down three clips that has the internet wrestling community in a frenzy.
Orange Cassidy’s new character arc is that he’s a fighting champion. His body is broken. He’s had a tapped-up wrist for a long time and has yet to get medical attention for it. He’s fighting everyone and anyone at any time, defending that International Championship.
Having a fighting champion is great. We’ve seen success stories of underdogs becoming top tier competitors. However, it’s becoming less and less meaningful and more and more turning Orange Cassidy into Super Cena.
During the 2000s, John Cena grabbed that “brass ring” and became the golden boy of WWE. He was an unstoppable champion, winning and winning and moving onto the next championship. That’s why he’s 16-time World Heavyweight Champion — tying Ric Flair’s record.
The reason for the comparison is simple: Orange Cassidy has become Super Cena. Multiple championship defenses. Always winning despite huge “powerful” moves being performed that could finish the matches. “Broken body” yet no doctor has tried to tell him to take rest and/or deem Cassidy not cleared to wrestle. Where’s the storyline of Cassidy feeling fatigue and needs a break or the story of actually losing the title to rest and come back better than ever?
AEW isn’t in need of a single hero like how WWE positioned John Cean back in the 2000s. AEW has multiple stars that have become breakout stars, will become break out stars anytime now, and those that are at home waiting for their opportunity.
Might be an unpopular opinion or unpopular thought, but it has all the signs. Cassidy isn’t as big as Cena. Cassidy has muscles but he has lean muscles and can go in the ring, but I’ve always wondered how far his gimmick would take him. His gimmick or character is a relaxed — super relaxed wrestler that can wrestle with his hand in his pockets. Cassidy is nicknamed “pockets” by some.
Let’s discuss the first clip.
The move above is called a Canadian Destroyer. Looks devastating, right? The Canadian Destroyer was invented by Petey Williams of Team Canada of TNA/Impact Wrestling.
The Canadian Destroyer is meant as a finisher. On the indies, everyone does a Canadian Destroyer but is no longer as effective as it should be. The Canadian Destroyer after Canadian Destroyer with no follow up with a pin attempt and no true story within that sequence severely waters down the once powerful move. A person is landing on their head. How does one recover within 0.01 seconds to get a rebound off the ropes and automatically do their own Canadian Destroyer? That doesn’t make sense and the magic and psychology gets dissolved.
In Japanese wrestling, they have a phrase called: fighting spirit. Think of Fighting Spirit like turning Super Saiyan as a last result when all other moves and options haven’t put away the opponent. Japanese wrestlers will test their strength and might in a flurry of lariats or clotheslines or forearm attacks or something that makes sense in the world of combat fighting and not just gymnastics.
Three Canadian Destroyers with no selling. The sell should be because of the “devastating” dizziness, or headache or something that’s a feeling so the fans can understand how brutal it is and it doesn’t become a regular move.
So, then what is the point?
How is that enjoyable when you, as the viewer, is pulled from the suspense of disbelief that every wrestler should be focusing on delivering to the paying customer and the viewer at home?
To improve: strikes and kicks and smacks and chain wrestling work best in these situations because it simulates a combat fight once all the big powerful moves like the Canadian Destroyer and others have been exhausted. It works well with New Japan Pro Wrestling. It works well with WWE — whenever they use this. It’s not broken, don’t fix it or try to wow fans who’ll forget within the week.
Let’s discuss the second clip.
The move in the video above is known as a package piledriver. The piledriver was created during the territory days of pro wrestling. Memphis and Texas territories were huge on piledrivers. Most notably, Jerry “The King” Lawler used the piledriver as his finisher.
That move is when you take your opponent and drop them on their head like a falling dart. Over the years, the move has modified into a package piledriver. This is where the wrestler takes the opponent and sets him up between his legs while hooking both arms, lifting, and dropping them on their head. In this particular move, Orange Cassidy — the champion — is dropped on the hardest part of the ring which is the apron. A wrestling ring’s skeletal structure is pure iron, and it hurts. And Penta is a little heavier than Cassidy so that should play a role in giving more damage to Cassidy, so how and why does Cassidy manage to get his hand on the bottom rope to stop the three count? Because he’s champion? Because of that wrestler instinct?
If Cassidy is playing up the tough underdog that keeps going despite having a “broken body,” and having a tape up wrist for the longest, why haven’t these issues caught up to him and have him lose the championship? The human body can only take so much pain and issues until it collapses on itself.
The best underdog wrestler is Rey Mysterio. They made Rey Mysterio believable in his underdog fights.
To improve: The Fear Factor move on the apron should have ended the match and we should have a new champion so Orange Cassidy can take a rest and rebuild — maybe get a new character layer — if we are to believe his story currently. All mini story arcs come to an end eventually so the character can level up. If a wrestling character does not evolve in their story progression, it becomes stale and uninteresting and often get left behind. Cassidy is a fan favorite but what else can he do?
Any wrestler can be put in a match and do moves and wow the crowd. But remember to add story. Orange Cassidy and Penta El Zero Meido are both high flyers. Penta is a luchador that can do out of this world moves. Cassidy is a strange anomaly that can wrestle with his hands in his pockets, do soft taps of kicks and slaps and the crowd overreacts (it was fun in the beginning), and kick out of powerful moves meant to end matches.
In this case for the match up, the way to tell the story would be — since we are factoring in Cassidy’s story of his broken body and taped up wrist — Cassidy needs to ground Penta and work on the body parts of Penta so he could win via submission, so Cassidy’s body doesn’t have to absorb any more pain.
Now, on the flip side, Penta could easily see this and adapt and do some ground attacks of his own. Aside from being a high flyer, he can adapt to another’s style. This is where Cassidy would need to switch things so he doesn’t get caught in big match ending moves (what should be) like a package piledriver on the apron and a Canadian Destroyer.
Fans need to understand that Cassidy — in story — is running out of time and can’t be escaping all the time to remain champion due to his body being broken so the urgency SHOULD BE THERE for Cassidy to always finish his matches in a shorter time. All of his opponents can smell blood in the water and will do devastating moves to end the match and become a new champion. It’s not believable that a man’s story about his body being broken can win against wrestlers with powerful moves to survive every time, all the time.
Let’s discuss the post-match promo.
This is the good babyface (good guy) promo. Orange Cassidy as a character barely talks. He gives one-word answers. He gives a lazy thumbs-up. But he decided to actually speak longer than usual. He spoke to the crowd and the viewers at home explaining how despite having a “broken body” and a taped wrist, that he is a fighting champion because he loves defending the International Championship because it’s a way to prove the naysayers wrong and show those who doubted him that he became something.
That’s a good babyface promo. It creates an emotional connection with the fans. Maybe some fans are dealing with situations in their lives that makes them doubt their abilities as people tell them they can’t be something. And hearing a promo from Cassidy can help that fan turn their life around and ignore those people.
However, time is ticking for Cassidy — in story — and he’ll eventually be dethroned because of his broken body. It’s nice to give hope but don’t be delusional.
Takeaways
Make moves count.
Ground wrestling moves in storytelling during matches.
Create an emotional connection with the fans if you’re babyface. But keep that emotional connection rooted in reality or at least kayfabe reality if the pushing story is: broken body, tired, taped wrist. Wrestlers aren’t indestructible.
Canadian Destroyers are a powerful move that should end a match because falling on your head in reality, in general, can be devastating.
Package Piledrivers are a step up from regular piledrivers and should be powerful enough to end matches.
Cheer for the underdogs. Support the underdogs. The underdogs don’t have to win it all most of the time. Underdogs are always dealing with doubt but their persistent makes them achieve so much more. If an underdog character always wins and has to push the “broken body” story, then…they aren’t an underdog character.
Having work rate (many matches or title defenses back-to-back with random opponents that don’t truly set up stories or don’t continue stories) doesn’t equal good quality matches (the high majority don’t even remember those matches) because in AEW, wrestlers need to one-up each other and one-up their previous matches even if the matches aren’t strung together like a storyboard or movie. That’s a bad formula because every wrestler is different, every wrestler’s story that’s trying to be told is different, and so there’s nothing different between all the wrestling acts to attract new viewers and even the day one AEW fans (like me) to bring back.
Indie match set-ups should be left on the indies. AEW is on cable now. Put on cable episodic worthy wrestling.
Conclusion
Use the Fighting Spirit to tell warrior in-ring stories rather than gymnastics that completely tell the world that your sport is nonsense. Sometimes trying new things can work but if it’s so out of the box that’ll leave most fans scratching their heads and questioning it more than the match itself or even overshadowing everything you’ve worked hard on — then it’s back to the drawing board. Wrestlers are concerned about getting that GIF, getting those 15 minutes of high spot recorded video fame where the internet talks about it, getting that rub, rather than focusing telling us a compelling story though the art of wrestling to keep us coming back next week or even next month in regard to indie wrestling. Don’t fix things that aren’t broken to make moments that don’t last in wrestling history.
Think about story both in and out of the ring.
Think about moves — what’s important for the overall in-ring story and maybe out of the ring story like post-match promos, which moves are important for your babyface character, which moves are important for your heel — remember it’s a team effort that needs to make sense and lift each other.
Hey friends! Thanks for reading this Tape Study write up focusing on Canadian Destroyer. Hope it’s valuable. Any comments, questions, thoughts, concerns, ideas for the next Tape Study please reply with a comment or email squaredcirclepodcast@outlook.com.
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