Isiah Kassidy tells the story of how his first-ever singles match, which took place against Chris Jericho on the September 30, 2020, episode of AEW Dynamite, almost went to Marq Quen instead.
Believe it or not, Isiah Kassidy made it to AEW without ever participating in a singles match. His first singles match took place against Chris Jericho on AEW Dynamite, and it was Jericho's idea to give him the match instead of his tag team partner.
During a recent YouTube video, Zay revealed the backstory to the match that took place on the 52nd episode of Dynamite deep into the pandemic era of AEW TV.
"So originally it was going to be Quen versus Jericho. But Jericho was like, 'Let's put Isiah in this role. We already know what Quen can do. Let's see if Isiah could hold his own.' So I remember, like, hearing about that, and like, 'Damn. This is going to be crazy.' To this day, this was the fastest match I ever put together in my whole entire career, especially with a guy like Chris Jericho," Zay recalled. "He showed me how not to make things complicated. I was so taken aback by how easy it was to put that match together.
"I remember, I got in there, I was super nervous, and he came in and said, 'Hey, what do you want to do?' I said, Well, I want to do, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop,' right? He said, 'Okay, well, what if we did this here, this here, this here...' and it was everything I wanted to do. He just placed it in different places after I left the room. I'm like, 'Damn, it was that fast. It doesn't have to be so complicated.' It ended up being a great match, in my opinion, especially for my second ever singles match, ever, and it was against Chris Jericho, and he made it super easy."
Zay went on to read an excerpt from Chris Jericho's book where he calls him a future main event draw for AEW.
Zay and Quen lost the AEW World Tag Team Championship belts to the Hurt Syndicate (Bobby Lashley & Shelton Benjamin) on the January 22 episode of AEW Dynamite, and they haven't wrestled for the company since. They did have one match in HOG in March 2025.
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