It's been a pretty good week for AEW‘s Wheeler Yuta
He and his Blackpool Combat Club faction-mate Jon Moxley beat the bricks off of his former friends Chuck Taylor and Trent Beretta, collectively known as the Best Friends, and then doubled-down on his winning ways with a big-time bout against Daniel Garcia at Ring of Honor's Death Before Dishonor 2022 to retain his ROH Pure Championship belt against the self-proclaimed sports entertainer – serving as a very well welcomed rematch of one of the best indie matches of the 2021 calendar year.
Factor in a win at Blood and Guts and a solid showing at the Rampage Rumble, and things are looking very good indeed for the 25-year-old Myrtle Beach, South Carolina native who just celebrated the one-year anniversary of his Dark debut last month.
And yet, with Fyter Fest officially in the rearview window and the duo of Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson turning their attention to Rush and Garcia respectively for bouts at Fight for the Fallen, one has to wonder what's next for Yuta. Will he continue to feud with Garcia? Dominate Dark with Pure matches? Or maybe start tagging with Claudio Castagnoli to prepare for an eventual match with FTR and/or The Briscoes, as was set up at Death Before Dishonor?
Well, before Yuta gets too focused on Ring of Honor, he might want to make sure his affairs are in order in his home promotion, as there's a friend-turned-foe, one could say a former Best Friend-turned-foe who might just be looking to settle a score and who knows, maybe secure the first title belt of his career in a promotion owned by Tony Khan?
Could AEW/ROH soon have a freshly squeezed Pure Champion?
Booking Orange Cassidy for a commentary gig is never a good idea. A man of few words, Cassidy is more of an “actions speak louder than words” sort of guy who rarely delivers an expansive, insightful quote but will occasionally give folks a glimpse into the mind of the most interesting enigma in professional wrestling.
Fortunately, on Night 3 of Fyter Fest, Cassidy rose to the occasion as he watched his Best Friend Chuck Taylor get pinned by Yuta, delivering onto fans one heck of a one-liner while sharing guest commentary duties with William Regal, a man who has never struggled to find his words.
"chuck taught him that pin"
me: pic.twitter.com/7xoCwz9lAa— rach (@dirtytwenny) July 21, 2022
“Chuck taught him that pin” my heart, my heart.
Now, as you probably already know but may have forgotten, before Yuta was killing it with ‘the Club – Blackpool, not Bullet – he was training under the tutelage of fellow East Coast indie darlings Chuck Taylor, Kris Statlander, and OC as an injury replacement for Trent Beretta. Though Trent specifically wasn't too high on Yuta, likely because he rightfully assumed he would abandon the team if a better offer came calling, Taylor took a liking to the Villanova product, teaming with him in the ring on 15 occasions to a 10-5 record.
Granted, when Beretta returned, Yuta's in-faction push took a bit of a backseat to the proper Best Friends, with the interactions between the two performers becoming more and more contentious with each passing week, but when they did eventually split, with the latter becoming enchanted by the idea of learning under the likes of Bryan Danielson, William Regal, Jon Moxley, and eventually Claudio Castagnoli, he at least thought they left on good terms, as you can see from the clip below via Brandon Walker's Rasslin' Podcast.
Was the split from the Best Friends an amicable one?@WheelerYuta gave us the real answer.
FULL INTERVIEW: https://t.co/7xzMXR8fAx pic.twitter.com/gED7hnaVWW
— Rasslin’ (@rasslin) June 20, 2022
“I thought this was supposed to be a nice, amicable split.” – a straight-faced Wheeler Yuta.
Since joining the BCC, Yuta has had a ton of success but so have the greater Best Friends faction, with both OC and Beretta wrestling big-time matches at Forbidden Door, albeit in losing efforts, and the debut of fun new rainbow outfits to, um, fit in with Cassidy's new, old Wet Hot American Summer-inspired theme song “Jane.” Though they haven't come up big in any of their marquee matches, it's only a matter of time before someone, probably Cassidy, wins the big one and elevates his organic, over-the-top character to new heights.
Who knows, maybe after watching Yuta embarrass his best friends and largely turn this back on the team who coached him up, maybe he has a target in mind for his first championship win since holding the DDT Iron Man Heavy Metal Championship back in 2020, the A1 Zero Gravity Championship in 2019, and the IWTV Independent Wrestling Championship in 2018 and 2019.
After apathetically floating around AEW for the better part of a year after his initial signing, Orange Cassidy finally tried in his first-ever match in the promotion versus PAC. Since then, OC has proven he can go, even if he doesn't always want to, and has captured the hearts and imaginations of fans the world over as a result. But for Wheeler Yuta's sake, let's hope OC doesn't want to try to go for his Pure Championship, as you know what they say about Cassidy; he's Freshly Squeezed, Never-From-Concentrate. Now what, my friends, could be more “pure” than that?
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