When Cody Rhodes left AEW to try his hand at WWE once more, it served as the ultimate test case of how Tony Khan's company had changed the industry forever.

After AEW effectively served as a safe space for creatively frustrated wrestlers who wanted to test their own ideas on a national stage, away from the creative stranglehold Vince McMahon had on his company back in 2019, would Rhodes, the promotions' first major defector, be allowed to keep the character he turned from undesirable to undeniable, “The American Nightmare,” or would WWE creative have other ideas for him, be that “Dashing,” mustachioed, or even “Stardust”-ed?

Fortunately for Rhodes, he returned with an almost identical presentation to his time in AEW, with his gear, his theme, his hair, and his neck tattoo effectively transported from an episode of Dynamite to Night 1 of WrestleMania 39.

This case study, though one-of-one at the moment, as it made wrestlers from around the world reckon with the fact that they could arrive in WWE, sign long-term contracts with six-figure paychecks, and still enjoy what they are doing, instead of accepting a paycheck from The Fed to look and act goofy. One of the acts currently evaluating their future is none other than FTR, as the tag team of Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood, with the latter stopping by Nick Hausman's Haus of Wrestling podcast to discuss how this paradigm shift could impact the future of wrestling for “Top Guys.”

“If I told you no, then that'd be a complete lie because it was pretty out in the open what happened with AEW and Cody,” Harwood said via Wrestling News. “So WWE could have snatched him up and really done whatever they wanted to because he wouldn't be able to come back to AEW. But seeing that they took him seriously and they have allowed him to be a big star definitely had me and Cash analyzing it way more than we would have before. They've done a great job with him and Cody has done a great job with himself too. He's been given the opportunities, but it's all about what you do with the opportunities because he could have been given an opportunity and just squandered it. But he believes in himself, man. I'm very, very close with Cody. We talk probably, at the very least we talk once a week, and I'm very proud of him, and I'm sure he's proud of us as well. But yes, it definitely made us reevaluate the things we could possibly do in the future.”

Could FTR, or, as they're known in WWE, The Revival, actually return to WWE despite not being Triple H guys or Mr. McMahon guys for the next segment of their careers? Or will they instead use this hype as a way to generate a massive push, and better contracts, in AEW? Fans will find out soon enough.

FTR and Cody Rhodes feel the same way about WWE's Chad Gable.

Elsewhere in his appearance on Haus of Wrestling, Harwood discussed one of his former rivals from NXT, Chad Gable, and backed up Rhodes' claim that the former Olympian is one of the best in-ring performers in the entire world, even if he doesn't always get the credit he deserves.

“You know, “I think Gable is always up for the challenge. I think he thinks he is the best, and I think he wants to prove that he's the best. I myself, I can't speak for Cash, but I myself also think I'm the best and that's what made for great matches with him and Jason Jordan is that the two teams wanted to be the best. The two teams wanted to blow each other up. The two teams wanted to outwork each other and we wanted our bosses to say, ‘Man, you were on tonight.' We ended up having a great professional relationship, but that turned into an even better personal relationship. I think Chad Gable is the most underrated wrestler in the world right now. I don't know if anybody else comes close to him.”

“We had the matches with those guys that you saw on TV and they were awesome. But the matches you didn't see on TV when we were going 30 minutes, 35, 45 minutes and he never would blow up. That's kind of me and Cash's MO is to blow people up because we would get a kick out of it. We couldn't blow him up and same thing with Jordan.”

While Gable's run in WWE hasn't been going great as of late, with the Maximum Male Models currently attempting to steal away his number one guy, Otis, when it comes to actually working in the ring, it's hard to argue that many are better than the man formerly known as Shorty G, as he might just be the best pound-for-pound wrestlers in the world right now and one Harwood would specifically like to wrestle at least one more time.

“I love Gable,” Harwood said. “I would love, love, love, love the opportunity to have at least one more match with him. because he is so talented.”