Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, Tony Khan did it; after hinting at beef between the Best Friends/CHAOS collective and the United Empire in both AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, the booking tandem of Gedo and TK have officially pulled the trigger one what might just be the most exciting match of the year that no one saw coming: Orange Cassidy versus Will Ospreay.

Now sure, to some, this is the worst of worst-case scenarios; OC has go-away heat with more than a few of the fans who fall at the top end of the target demo – plus one very prominent wrestling promotor turned podcaster – and his insertion onto any card, especially in a prominent role, will send shivers down their spines. If you fall into that camp, even a match between Cassidy and The Undertaker, returned to the ring for one night only, wouldn't be worth the price of admission. But for the rest of the AEW fanbase who have adopted Cassidy as the promotion's de facto mascot – at least before Danhausen showed up – and consistently made him one of the top-selling merch pushers on Pro Wrestling Tees, seeing him on any show is cause for excitement.

And as for Ospreay, New Japan Pro Wrestling's current IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion who has been quietly been putting on classics in America all year long with Warrior Wrestling? Well, he has a chance to cement his status as one of the best wrestlers in the world and the man who worked OC into his first five-star match.

Orange Cassidy and Will Ospreay is a match made in AEW heaven.

Will Ospreay is what you would call an all-around wrestler. He can do big-time, Kenny Omega-esque 40-minute bouts for five stars on the Dave Meltzer scale – he currently has 18 matches with five or more stars, including a six-star match versus Shingo Takagi – perform exemplarily well in multi-man matches either with his United Empire cohorts or with Swords Of Essex, and even mix things up with the occasional vanity match, like his inter-gender match versus then-girlfriend Bea Priestley.

What Ospreay hasn't partaken in, at least not nearly as often, has been light-hearted matches that some would call “comedy.”

No, not like wrestling a ninja turtle or anything, but the light-hearted way Orange Cassidy begins his matches, first with a by now greatest hits routine of putting his hands in his pockets, before the match gradually ramps up to a fast-paced, hard-ish hitting affair chocked full of Beach Breaks and Orange Punches. For all of the classics Ospreay has put on in the ring, he's never quite had to deal with that, even if some of his antics, like on night one of Wrestle Kingdom 16, when he emerged from the crowd with his Warrior Wrestling and RevPro Wrestling titles to challenge Kazuchika Okada for a match on Night 2 of the event – citing that he was the true champion since his run with the belt, which he brought along, ended due to injury, not a pinfall loss.

Now granted, Ospreay didn't ultimately win the belt in that match, as his antics were sort of ridiculous to an outside observer, but since then, Ospreay has traversed the wide world of wrestling to take part in all sorts of matches, big, small, and anywhere in between. In America, Ospreay has turned in very good bouts versus Brian Cage, Homicide, Blake Christian, and a rare loss to Jon Moxley at NJPW's Windy City Riot, but none of his opponents have posessed the unique combination of fast-paced fun and sloth-style stylistic change-ups that Cassidy can bring to the table. He can kill a foe's momentum on the spot, break their concentration with his goofy ways, and even then, seemingly on a dime, go full-on Super Saiyan in a wrestling style honed for years and years in the Chikara dojo, where he was *spoiler alert* wrestling under the name Fire Ant as part of the promotion's The Colony stable.

What? You didn't know OC was a masked performer in Chikara, or have never watched him before? Well, check this oldie but goodie with none other than the Young Bucks, the new AEW tag team champions, that took place at “High Noon” back in 2012.

Goodness, the Bucks look so young, and Orange looks so, um, red.

Will Will Ospreay take care of business against Orange Cassidy at Forbidden Door? Yeah, probably; Ospreay is the IWGP United States Heavy Weight Champion of New Japan Pro Wrestling, after all, and OC is so bulletproof that no loss could distinguish the fire fans feel towards him at AEW arenas the world over. But will the match be a barn-burner worth the coveted five stars that have to this point eluded Cassidy under his current moniker? There's a very good chance that will happen too.