FTR knows that WWE and AEW are very different companies, but the idea of feeling frustrated still registers the same way no matter where they’re at.
Former AEW World Tag Team Champions Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood of FTR recently appeared on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast and spoke about the difference in voicing issues while now being in AEW compared to their time in WWE. Dax began by saying that the level of frustration is all the same, noting how their frustration with tag team wrestling not being a focus in WWE is the same as FTR’s Owen Hart tournament qualifier not being promoted as well as it could have been on TV.
Dax: “Honestly, man, I don’t know if there was any difference in the frustration,” Harwood explained. “Ya know, we were in WWE, every night, not one night did it cross our mind ‘oh, let’s phone it in because they’re not getting behind tag team wrestling’. That’s what kept our image and our reputation alive, was that every single night, whether it was RAW, SmackDown or a house show, we killed it. Every single second that was given to us, we’d take it and we’d make the most of it and we’d do it with a smile on our face.
“I don’t think frustration varies in wrestling or in life, I don’t think it varies. I think we get frustrated because we love it so much and it’s so easy for wrestlers to say that nowadays and they do, ‘oh, I love it, I’d do anything for it’ but I’ll be damned… I’ve said it a million times, there’s God, my wife and my daughter and professional wrestling. Well, God, my wife and my daughter and Cash and professional wrestling…and that’s it,” Harwood stated.
“Last night I got frustrated watching the TV show because I felt like the announcement of Dax versus Cash should’ve been given a grander stage but that’s because I love it so much, not because I had any ill feelings towards anybody. Same thing with WWE, when they weren’t giving tag teams any time or giving them proper spotlights for the matches, I was frustrated but not with anybody in particular,” Harwood explained, “I was frustrated because I wanted better and I just love it so much. So, again, just to wrap it all up…the frustration doesn’t vary, it’s all the same across the board and I’m going to be frustrated tomorrow, probably…if you’re gonna love it so much, it’s gonna happen, if you don’t love it that much or care about it that much, then you’ll sit back and let things come and go as you please. I’m not like that, I have to go out and get it.”
Wheeler would then mention while the variety of their frustrations weren’t much different between AEW and WWE, AEW allows their wrestlers to take control and do something with their issues.
Cash: “Yeah, and to tie that together with your last question, it’s also the creative freedom. So, if we aren’t doing something where we’re like ‘okay, we’re not gonna be on AEW TV for a couple of weeks, let’s see if we can go to Mexico, let’s see if we can go to Ring of Honor,” Cash explained, “let’s see if we can do a show with Rock ‘N Roll [Express]’ and we can stay busy and we can do the things, again, that we wanna check off for ourselves. Luckily, fans are wanting to see that stuff too.
“So, to be able to have a clear path to talk to somebody and voice that concern is a huge difference. And again, it’s not a knock on anybody but the system over there [WWE] is a lot more convoluted trying to get an answer from one person, you have to go here and here and here…but here it’s ‘Tony [Khan] can we do this? Yeah? Cool, we’re good?’ and that’s the solution. We’re always gonna be wanting to do something great and if you’ve ever seen the best football players and the best basketball players are the ones who get pissed off the most often. You see Tom Brady breaking his tablets, Aaron Rodgers throwing this,” Cash noted, “you see the guys who are great are always mad when they’re not perfect. So, we wanna be doing more so we’re gonna be frustrated but here, you get to voice that and you get to do something with it.”
Report: FTR On Owen Hart Tournament Match: We Had To Fight For It, But It Was Completely Our Idea
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Check out the full interview with FTR below:
