FTR wants to restore the prestige of tag team wrestling by following the rules—but that doesn’t mean they won’t work around the rules on their way to the top.
Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard ahead of their match against the Lucha Brothers at AEW Fight For The Fallen on TNT. Dax and Cash have made an impression in All Elite Wrestling despite only being there since May 27.
The two are on a quest to put the shine back on tag team wrestling, and the free agents saw AEW as an obvious landing spot because of the depth and level of talent in their tag team division. Despite the pedigree of some of the other teams like Hangman Page & Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks and Lucha Brothers, FTR wants to change how tag team wrestling is done and it all starts with following the rules.
Dax and Cash say they’ve already had plenty of conversations in AEW about traditional rules, tag ropes and other things that have been overlooked, but want to make sure that these things are reinforced instead of being ignored. The two said they can keep pushing their issues when they face off with the Lucha Brothers, a team that is their polar opposite and offers a complete clash of styles. FTR believes this difference in style will not only create an interesting dynamic for them as wrestlers, but it’s also going to be exciting for fans to see how they match up.
With so many issues pertaining to the rules, can Dax and Cash name their biggest pet peeve when it comes to others breaking the rules? A tough question no doubt, but the two said if they’re put on the spot, they’d really like to see more control of the run-ins from the participants that aren’t legally in the match.
Dax: “One? [laughs] I honestly don’t think I can narrow it down to one. If I had to pick one, a lot of the tag teams think it’s OK for their partner to come in any time they want and just start beating up the other guy and they stay in the ring for 30 seconds. That’s not a tag team match, that’s when it becomes a four-way match. You’ve got all four guys standing in the ring together and just doing a whole bunch of stuff. You have rules.
“At one time, the partner had one save, one legal save that you could use. As then as time went on, I remember in the mid-90s that WCW had two saves. It was two saves and it was the only time your opponent could come in an actually touch the legal guy if [he was] illegal. I think that’s my number one pet peeve.”
Cash: “I think I’m going to have to go with the same thing, the illegal saves or just coming in on a whim and punching the legal guy right in front of the ref’s face and that being OK, because that defeats the entire purpose of tag team wrestling. How are you going to keep one of the babyfaces isolated and put on legitimate heat if the other teammate can just come in and kicking ass whenever he feels like it? It doesn’t make sense to me. If you’re going to cheat or have the other partner come in, do it in a way that doesn’t bury the tag team rules and the referee, that doesn’t just make a mockery of tag team wrestling as a whole.”
Read More: FTR On Why They Haven’t Signed With AEW Long Term, Comparing Khan & McMahon
Some fans could argue FTR play the ‘bad guy’ role and the Lucha Bros are the heroes, but the argument could easily be made for each team to play the opposite role. Scripted television shows have been blurring the lines between good and bad for years, and professional wrestling is starting to embrace the “shades of grey” even more now. It used to be easy to determine who the babyface and heels were, but as Dax and Cash explained, that trope might not work as intended today and they’re more interested in the emotional investment of their work and letting the fans decide who is good or evil.
Dax: “I don’t know if I believe in ‘babyfaces and heels’. I don’t know. Before anybody is a babyface and before anybody is a heel—at least for myself and Cash—we’re men. We’re men and you’re either going to like us or you’re not going to like us and I think that attributes to your personality and your traits. You’ve got to build on those character traits. Ultimately I think getting emotionally invested is the way you make the most money, the way you draw the most fans, the most viewers. To have someone, one set of guys or one individual fighting another set of guys or an individual, and there’s a conflict of interest and the fans choose what side they believe in, what side they want to be on, I think that’s where we’re at in the world right now. I don’t think ‘great matches’ every week are the answer to pro wrestling and how to make money. There’s a conflict of interest and the fans are going to decide in their mind who is the good guy and who is the ‘bad guy.’”
Cash: “Yeah, I think it comes down to—it might not be babyfaces and heels, per se. It’s not that cut and dry anymore. Things do evolve and things have changed but there needs to be a protagonist and there needs to be an antagonist. There has to be something, anything for the fans to latch on to emotionally and really get invested. I used the analogy the other day during an interview that I don’t want fans to only do the ‘car crash pop’ in a match where they’re only reacting because it looks so brutal and it looks like we’re killing each other because we probably are. I want it to be the one where they’re at the edge of their seat and they can’t look away because they’re so enthralled with what’s going on and the story being told. They are that invested in it and in awe—that’s what I think makes wrestling special, when there’s that emotional attachment that takes everything to a whole new level.”
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