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With 2022 officially over, the “Year of FTR” has come to an end; two of their belts have been lost, first to The Briscoes and then Hermaons Lee at Lucha Libre Noche De Campeones, with a third potentially joining the legacy collection at Wrestle Kingdom 17, when they take on Chaos' Bishamon in the middle of the card. While some fans have accepted the way Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler have been booked in AEW, as despite getting the rub in Ring of Honor, New Japan Pro Wrestling, and even Lucha Libre AAA, Tony Khan has kept them from securing the AEW Tag Team Championship in order to put over other performers, from Jurassic Express to The Acclaimed, and even The Hardy Brothers, even if that team didn't ultimately secure the strap due to Jeff's DUI suspension, others haven't been so kind. No, for hardcore fans, the fact that FTR only earned one title shot in AEW in 2022 despite being the number one contender for much of the year is a tragedy and the sort of intentional cool-down booking that was meant to keep fans from getting too excited about the team.
One fan who fully falls into the latter category is Jim Cornette, who explained how casual fans will lose interest in FTR if they keep losing.
“A lot of more casual fans than we are, instead of bemoaning that [FTR losing often] they are not really offended by it because they are not in the profession,” Cornette said via Ringside News. “So they just go, ‘Yeah yeah those guys, well I’ll like somebody else.’ And that’s the way that you basically rub off the appeal of any talent. If they are obviously good, people obviously like them and they never succeed then sooner or later people will stop giving a sh*t.”
Is Cornette correct? Will fans stop caring about FTR if they don't win? I would argue no, as FTR landed where they did on the PWI Tag Team rankings for a reason, but maybe Khan chose his booking with an ultimate purpose; maybe FTR really are leaving AEW, either for WWE or just to go the indie route, and this is all a logical come down with one final match against the Bucks to complete their AEW trilogy before bidding adieu? Either way, with their contracts expiring in the spring, Revolution could provide the answer.
Dax Harwood explains to AEW fans how to enjoy Jim Cornette's commentary.
Flipping things around, what with FTR now being the name of a podcast as well as a tag team, Harwood discussed whether or not fans should care about Cornette's opinion, which, unfortunately, often is particularly critical of AEW. A “Cornette guy” through and through, Harwood sees some value in his commentary.
“I think Jim… has done so much in this business that he is allowed to have whatever opinion he wants on any style of professional wrestling. I think he has so much knowledge to impart on wrestlers, too,” Harwood said via 411 Mania. “I think if you listen to his podcast and if you could filter through some of the stuff that p*sses you off, and I know he says some things that are off-kilter, some things he says bothers me sometimes, but if you can filter through that, man, you’ll learn something every single episode he has.”
Learn from Cornette? What, like a new nickname for the Young Bucks? Well, hear Harwood out, as he makes a pretty good case for the wisdom of Corny.
“If a Jim Cornette came to me, and he said, “man, that f*cking match sucked d*ck,” then I would say: “Okay, Jim, can you tell me why? Or what was wrong?” And he’d tell me. I would listen to it. And I would say okay, he thinks this is wrong, this is wrong, maybe he would tell me what is right about it. I would take all that and I would put it into my memory bank, okay? I would think about it, and I would say… “Jim said this was wrong, but I don’t think it was wrong.” Then he may say I think this is wrong, and I would say “Okay. I agree, that could have been done better. I would use that to get better as a performer instead of saying oh, this motherfucker, he was talking shit about me. Jim was not talking sh*t about me, okay? Jim, Booker T, Bret Hart. Any of these guys, anybody who has done something in this business? They can have any opinion they want because they’ve done it all. But when they criticize a wrestler and his abilities, that’s just them criticizing a wrestler, a character, and their abilities.”
Alright, that's fair. If, for example, Cornette were to talk trash on Harwood as a man, that would be one thing, but just criticizing a character really isn't that big of a deal and could even provide some additional perspective that doesn't come from a completely complementary audience. Now granted, Cornette does routinely cross the line into personal attacks, which is why some folks aren't big fans of his podcasts, but hey, that's a story for another story.