There was a time when FTR's number one contendership for the AEW Tag Team Championship was one of the biggest in-jokes among smart marks of professional wrestling. FTR outlasted The Lucha Brothers, Jurassic Express, The Young Bucks – who took the belts off of them in the first place – and Swerve in our Glory and were almost lapped by The Acclaimed, too, before they finally earned a title shot – their first of 2022 for AEW's tag honors – in December.
So what gives? Why did it take quite literally an entire calendar year for FTR to challenge for the AEW titles despite being arguably the most popular tag team in the nation, especially when there were some not-so-prestigious title holders like Jurassic Express, who were going to drop the straps to the Hardy Brothers before Jeff was arrested for a DUI? Well, Dax Harwood explained just that on his FTR podcast, and the insight is incredibly interesting.
“It would have been a cool moment,” Harwood said via Fightful. “I hate giving away the magic, but I have to get with the times, I guess. That was Cash and I's idea, the match with The Acclaimed. We wanted to have that match with them because I felt, whenever we were at our most popular in the summer, the opportunity was missed with us. I've expressed this to Tony (Khan) and we've had talks, and he has his reasons, and when he explained his reasons, they are good reasons. I felt like our opportunity was missed and there was a time where we could have went over the threshold and there was an opportunity to make us, not just the top babyface tag team, but maybe the top babyface act in the company. Right up there with (CM) Punk and Mox [Jon Moxley]. We should have, of course, I feel this way because we're all egotistical in some way. I felt we should have been the team to topple one of the top heels in the company. That would have set us at the top and I felt we could have helped the company in that aspect, but it never happened. Cash and I wanted to do that for The Acclaimed. We wanted to give them an incredible wrestling match. It was two babyfaces, at the same time being polar opposites. One team is full of energy and full of life and oozing charisma and rapping to the ring. The other team has this guy here [himself], a 38-year-old balding mustache [laughs]. I wanted to give them a great match and we wanted to make sure they were looked as the top tag team in the company.”
Interesting stuff indeed; outside of Swerve in our Glory, AEW really hasn't had a top heel team for FTR to dethrone in the tag team division, save the Young Bucks, who are in a weird spot considering they are hometown heroes in the promotion considering their place in its founding lore, so putting FTR against the Lucha Brothers, Jurassic Express, or even Swerve in our Glory wouldn't have put over the team any further, especially with marquee matches against The Briscoes filling up their calendar every few months and cementing their legacy outside of WWE. As fans have watched over the last month, FTR are no longer solely focused on securing tag team titles, especially if it meant taking them off of an organically over young tag team.
“At that point in time, we didn't want the tag belts,” Harwood said. “We felt, if we did get the tag belts, one, this team that had, just like us, gotten organically over, the people loved and cared about them, they may be upset with us. Two, not just because my bags were heavy, but I didn't want to have four tag team belts walking around because I felt the people would think we're getting pushed down their throats. I knew that if we lost in the right way, we could make them feel sorry for us and make them love us even more.”
Would it be better to watch FTR in the middle of a feud with, say, the House of Black right now instead of The Acclaimed getting into potential shoot fights with Karen and Jeff Jarrett over lines about Kurt Angle? Yes, that sounds a whole lot more entertaining, but hey, to paraphrase Best Friends, you've got to give the people what they want, and right now, the AEW fans want The Acclaimed even more than FTR.
AEW's Max Caster has the John Cena seal of approval.
Speaking of Caster, when he stopped by The AJ Awesome Show late last year, “Platnum Max” was asked about the inspiration for his rapper character and let it slip that none other than John Cena endorsed his mic skills.
“John Cena is a huge inspiration,” Caster said via Fightful. “I’ve never met him, but he reaches out to me from time to time. He’s been very, very nice, and for my hero as a teenager to reach out to me and, in the midst of people saying, ‘Oh, you’re a Cena rip-off, you’re just doing something that’s old, we don’t want to see this in wrestling now,’ for him to reach out and say, ‘You’re doing it the right way,’ sometimes he says I do it better than he did, it’s his opinion. I don’t know if I wanna agree with that, but I believe in myself, 100%, and his confidence in me only boosts me up. I don’t know if he knows how much that means, but it means a lot. So he’s my inspiration back then and now still.”
While Cena's run as the “Master of Thuganomics” has aged incredibly well in the hearts and minds of professional wrestling fans due to the sheer ridiculousness of the gimmick, it's clear Caster is taking the character in his own direction – he has been using it since he was a member of Create-A-Pro in New York after all – and that's a big reason why he's maybe one of the most organically over performers in AEW, period.
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