While it may have taken time for some fans to warm up to Orange Cassidy, the AEW star has proven to most of the promotion’s audience that he’s fully capable of holding his own in the ring against the industry’s heavy-hitters. However, that doesn’t mean that Cassidy loves long matches, as he revealed during an interview with Monopoly Events that he’d rather get in and out having exerted a minimum amount of effort.

“Special guest referee. I’m the referee,” Cassidy said when asked to name his favorite match type.

Later on in the session, Cassidy was asked to specify his favorite match, and his answer was along similar lines.

“My favorite is when I wrestled Will Hobbs on ‘AEW Dark’ and I beat him in 13 seconds,” Cassidy stated. “It’s my favorite because it was the shortest.”

Despite his personal preference for spending less time in the ring, Cassidy has wrestled more than 280 matches in AEW since the promotion’s very first show, nearly seven years ago. The aforementioned “Dark” match against Hobbs took place early in his tenure, and he’d later go on to face the future Royce Keys several more times, including in a 2021 “AEW Rampage” match.

Cassidy and his fellow members of The Conglomeration have been dealing with a new threat in AEW as of late: The Dogs. They’ve had some help against the new stable, however, joining forces with Darby Allin earlier this month.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Monopoly Events and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

On June 24, 2007, Chris Benoit no-showed WWE’s Vengeance: Night of Champions pay-per-view, where he’d been scheduled to wrestle CM Punk and win the ECW World Championship. Benoit was replaced that night by Johnny Nitro – now known as Johnny TV, who real name is John Hennigan – before the world later heard that Benoit was not only dead, but had murdered his wife and son before ending his own life.

Now, 19 years later, Johnny TV opened up about that night, his success following the PPV, and the guilt that came after during an interview on “Insight with Chris Van Vliet.” “Around 3, I hear Chris Benoit hasn’t shown up, and if he doesn’t show up, I might need to fill in or something,” Hennigan recalled. 

At the time, Hennigan thought it was unlikely that Benoit would miss a show, let alone a PPV, but by 5 p.m., he and fellow WWE star Mordecai were told to be ready as possible replacements, and that one of them would be winning the title. “I spend the next two hours pacing, hoping that Chris Benoit does not show up.”

As history notes, Hennigan wound up beating Punk and winning the title. Though it was a milestone moment for him, it also led to deep feelings of guilt. “The next day, we get the news about Benoit and what happened,” Hennigan said. “I felt like crap. I felt so guilty just for being happy with something that came to be because of the tragedy.” Even today, it’s a difficult moment for Hennigan to look back on, and something he still feels confused about benefiting from.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

After a negative response to his initial debut at WWE Elimination Chamber 2026, Danhausen seems to be winning over the company’s audience after all, with appearances on both “WWE Raw” and “WWE SmackDown.” Sitting down with Sam Roberts and Megan Morant on “Raw Recap,” Danhausen laid out some of his future goals with WWE now that he’s getting settled in.

“I need to be on ‘Wrestling Mania,'” Danhausen started. “I hear about this Money in the Bank briefcase, and I think that’s a nice little bonus, ’cause you open it up, it’s full of cash, I presume.”

Danhausen then stated that he’d use the money to buy a PT Cruiser. However, not all of his ambitions are as attainable.

“I think I’d like to team with Roddy Piper,” Danhausen said, after being asked who he’d choose to ally with from the upcoming WWE 2K video game. “‘Cold’ Steve Austin versus Danhausen, in a hair versus hair match. I’ll make him even balder. Shave his goatee, too. … We’ve got ‘Rock The Dwayne Johnson.’ I could beat him, I think. … You’ve got ‘Pepsi Phil,’ good old CM Punk. I think I could beat him and take back my finishing maneuver.”

Danhausen and Punk have a friendship that was sparked years ago, even before Punk came out of retirement, with Punk evidently appreciating Danhausen’s sense of humor and approach to the business. The two wrestlers had some overlap in their time with AEW, as Danhausen debuted months after Punk arrived. Following Punk’s AEW departure, Danhausen remained with the company but was rarely used, and he joined WWE almost immediately after the expiration of his contract last month.

Before moving on to another topic, Danhausen added one more to his list of desired bouts: a Hell in a Cell match against Andre the Giant.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “Raw Recap” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

In the 1990s, ECW (or Extreme Championship Wrestling) earned a reputation for hard-hitting and boundary-pushing pro wrestling, attracting a devoted fanbase that has revered the promotion since its closure. While not a 1:1 comparison, there are some similarities between today’s AEW and the ECW of yore, with Rob Van Dam acknowledging in an interview with Monopoly Events that some of its modern stars would do well in the hardcore promotion.

“I think Jon Moxley,” Van Dam said. “ECW had some people that liked to do gory stuff, and bleeding a lot, but not all of us. I didn’t like that s**t, you know? So I wasn’t in those matches and I still don’t like it … but it was a melting pot of a lot of different styles. … Swerve [Strickland] would do really well there, as well. He’d fit in.”

RVD also nodded his head along with the interviewer when it was suggested that Darby Allin would be a strong ECW performer. The WWE Hall of Famer said that the AEW stars could have ready-made rivals in opponents like Balls Mahoney and the Gangstas tag team, featuring New Jack and Mustafa Saed.

This is far from the first time AEW has drawn certain comparisons to ECW. In the past, Tony Khan has paid tribute to ECW by hosting some of its most memorable performers, including Van Dam. Last year, AEW also held a TV special called September to Remember, making reference to ECW’s recurring November to Remember pay-per-view.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit X and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.