Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Roderick Strong Wins AEW International Title vs. Orange Cassidy at Revolution 2024

Mike Chiari

Roderick Strong defeated Orange Cassidy at AEW Revolution on Sunday to win the International Championship.

After the match, Kyle O'Reilly made his long-awaited return after a nearly two-year absence. He hugged Strong and teased joining Undisputed Kingdom before leaving the ring.

Strong was revealed as a member of Undisputed Kingdom at Worlds End in December along with Adam Cole, Wardlow, Matt Taven and Mike Bennett, and it quickly became apparent that all of them were pursuing championship gold.

In Undisputed Kingdom's first promo after their reveal, Cole laid out their master plan, and it included Strong taking the international title from Cassidy.

It wasn't long before Strong took direct aim at OC, but Cassidy didn't back down and offered to put his title on the line right on the spot in January. However, Roddy chose to wait until Revolution.

Cassidy first won the International Championship in 2022 when it was still known as the All-Atlantic Championship, and he went on to hold it for 326 days before dropping it to Jon Moxley at All Out 2023.

OC's time without the title was short-lived, though, as Mox lost the title to Rey Fénix 17 days after winning it, and then 20 days later, Cassidy won the belt back from Fénix.

Entering Revolution, Cassidy's second title reign had far exceeded 100 days, and his collective time as international champion was approaching 500 days.

While Cassidy has a lackadaisical character, it can be argued that there has been no bigger workhorse in AEW over the past couple of years than him.

He defended the International Championship with great regularity in his first title reign and still managed to hold it for nearly a year, and it was more of the same after winning it for a second time.

That meant Cassidy perhaps posed much more of a challenge than the cocky Strong initially thought, making for a highly entertaining encounter.

The fatigue of constant title defenses may have finally caught up to Cassidy at Revolution, as Strong lived up to his status as one of the best in-ring workers in wrestling and took the international title for himself and Undisputed Kingdom.

Listen to Ring Rust Radio for all of the hot wrestling topics. Catch the latest episode in the player below.

Click to expand figure....
   

Read 3 Comments

Download the app for comments Get the B/R app to join the conversation

Install the App
×
Bleacher Report
(120K+)