Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler, collectively known as FTR, recently countered the criticism of AEW‘s pattern of signing ex-WWE stars by explaining how it’s beneficial for the company to do so.
In its relatively short history, AEW has added plenty of stars who enjoyed a lot of success in Vince McMahon’s promotion. Cody Rhodes, an Executive Vice President, had a 10-year run in WWE. PAC, formerly known as Neville, and Chris Jericho, a legendary WWE star, were announced as part of the roster at the promotion’s introductory press conference.
Since then, AEW has added major names like Jon Moxley, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole, among several others. wheeler and Harwood another example; they won the tag titles on all three WWE brands before they left the company in 2020. Practically each time the company signs an ex-WWE star, some fans express their belief that, in contining to do so, AEW is losing its own identity by relying on stars who got famous elsewhere.
In an interview with TSN.ca, Harwood critiqued the narrative that AEW’s pattern of signing stars who leave WWE is detrimental whatsoever. He argued that AEW has to sign performers who have TV experience because, otherwise, the promotion would be forced to rely on an entire roster of wrestlers who don’t. Harwood also stressed the significance of the difference been standard wrestling and television wrestling.
“There are a lot of fans, and it boggles my mind, who are upset by this,” Harwood said. “They’re upset by seeing a lot of former WWE talent [in AEW]. They’ve got to understand AEW cannot just hire independent wrestlers because if they only hire independent wrestlers for a television product, it’s almost like the blind leading the blind. You have to have people who are experienced in television wrestling because it’s a completely different beast from just professional wrestling.”
Wheeler shared his thoughts on the matter by explaining that AEW signs these stars for a reason; they’re talented, and the company can only benefit from acquiring them. He passionately dismissed the term “ex-WWE” stars, which is typically used for the performers who leave the promotion and thrive elsewhere, because it’s an inaccurate label. Wheeler stated that many of these performers grind throughout the business for a long time, and the fact that there’s now a second major promotion naturally sets up the free agent activity fans have been seeing since AEW’s formation.
“The company gets better by signing these people,” said Wheeler. “And I hate when people call them ‘ex-WWE this’ or ‘ex-WWE that’ because yeah, we’ve worked there. We’ve all worked there at some point, but that doesn’t make us their property or like we didn’t learn these things some time before that, also.
“We’ve all learned these things from decades of hard work, decades of putting in the grind and going all over to get good enough to where we can get jobs with the best wrestling companies in the world and it just so happens that now there’s another huge, great wrestling company and that hasn’t been around for 20-plus years. So now there’s options and there are going to be people coming over and that’s just how it’s going to be, but that doesn’t mean the company is going to be the next whatever. They’re killing it right now. They’re signing the people that need to be signed and wrestling is better because of it.”
Harwood then looked back on the duo’s decision to sign with AEW. He recalled how they were trying to leave WWE for a year and a half because they weren’t able to meet their potential with the company. Harwood noted that they would have stayed with WWE and made plenty of money, but doing so wouldn’t have let them chase their goal of becoming the greatest tag team of all time.
“We knew our potential wasn’t being met there and outside of WWE was where we could actually break through the glass ceiling and become the greatest tag team ever,” said Harwood. “We could have stayed there and made a ton of money, but that wasn’t our goal. Our goal was to become the greatest tag team in the history of professional wrestling.”
As Harwood and Wheeler continue to make history in their reign as the AAA World Tag Team Champions, it’s fair to argue that they’re successfully chasing that goal. In the same interview, the duo claimed that a world tour, which would take them to Japan, is part of this mission.
RELATED: Tony Khan: AEW Is In The ‘96 Phase’ Of Competition With WWE, We’re Avoiding WCW’s Mistakes
