FTR’s Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler finally returned from hiatus at the Revolution pay-per-view earlier this month, but their future with All Elite Wrestling remains uncertain. While reports have since come out stating they’re under contract for a good chunk of 2023, Dax Harwood is still claiming on his FTR podcast that their deals expire in April and they’ll announce their next move soon. The decorated former tag team champion was back on his show this week and discussed what it’ll take for the “Top Guys” to stay with the promotion. They’re currently in a feud with The Gunns over the AEW World Tag Team Championships that will likely result in them winning the belts for a second time.
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He began by explaining that, despite all the success the pair had in 2022, they weren’t featured as top stars on AEW programming. Despite being No. 1 contenders for a good chunk of the year, the two wound up going months without having a standard tag team match on Dynamite.
“On TV, there were no angles for us. No storylines. We ended up having like between six and seven tag team matches on television all year. I feel like, and I felt like, the boat was kind of missed on our momentum last year,” Harwood said.
“I told Tony (Khan), and Cash did as well, if we come back, because we had talks about what’s going to make us happy or what we need to stay here. Of course, I would love to have great matches, I would love to have a great match and what fans consider a great tag team match, I would love to have that every single week, but that doesn’t help us grow as characters, but also as entities in people’s minds, What we need is we need to connect with them on a deeper level. For example, the eight-year-old girl promo. After I cut that promo, I feel like we got even more over than any kind of five star match would have made us. We told Tony those are the things that we need. We need an opportunity to speak so the people can feel for us one way or the other,” he continued.
FTR’s Dax Harwood on How The Usos Are Presented on WWE TV
He later brought up The Usos, who often get the chance for promos and character development on WWE TV despite taking a backseat to Roman Reigns within The Bloodline.ย
“…If we stick around in AEW after the thing with The Gunns is over with, we have to be presented as main event level guys. We have to be presented, no pun intended, as top guys. We need to work with main event level talent because if we don’t get an opportunity to sink our teeth into something that people perceive to be main event level stuff, main event quality stuff, then the same thing that happened last year is going to happen this year, I feel,” Harwood explained
“…(The Usos are) probably the most over tag team in the world right now, and I say that with a chip on my shoulder,” he later added. “That pisses me off because I feel like that’s what I think we should be presented and how we should be presented. Like, you could take those guys, singles or tag, and put them in a main event spot right now and no one would bat an eye on it and they could work with anybody.”ย
