In the same week FTR challenged The Gunns to a “we lose and we leave AEW forever” match on Dynamite, Dax Harwood decided to dedicate an episode of his podcast, FTR with Dax Harwood, to none other than the head booker and Chief Content Officer of WWE, Triple H, who was in charge of booking NXT during their reign.
On paper, the decision to pair Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler, then known as Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson, together was a stroke of developmental genius, as was pitting the duo against some of the best teams in the promotion like American Alpha and #DIY but in the end, the balder half of FTR believed that he and his partner never quite fell into the same good graces as other teams in the promotion.
“We’ve all heard about Hunter as a wrestler, and everyone can formulate an opinion of what they think of him as a wrestler and what he’s done in the business,” Harwood said via Fightful. “But he’s someone who changed the trajectory of my career and Cash’s career, and he did it by being a boss first, being a mentor second. I’ve said it before, we were never Hunter guys, and I will hold to that until the day we retire. But we were not Hunter guys.”
Whoa, does that mean FTR, or as they would be known in WWE, The Revival, are definitely headed back to AEW after beating the bricks off of The Gunns, presumably at Double or Nothing? Or could the duo accept being a top tag team a la The Street Profits but not the top guys, which is literally their nickname? Fortunately, Harwood did provide more context to his comments, and needless to say, it provides shades of gray to pretty black-and-white comments.
Dax Harwood provides more context on his relationship with Triple H.
Asked to expand on his belief that FTR were never going to be the top guys in WWE under Trips' eyes – it's well documented how little Vince McMahon thought of FTR – Harwood admitted that his former booker fully appreciated what the team could do in the ring but never quite had the faith that they could carry the company as the top tag team.
“No, let me put a little correction on that. Not one of his favorites,” Harwood said. “I do believe that we were one of his favorites skill-wise, talent-wise, I think we were. But we weren’t one of the guys I think he wanted to build the company around or the brand around. I think he understood what we offered. I think I he understood how good we were in the ring, the stories we could tell, and I think he knew that we could be a piece to the puzzle, but I don’t think he wanted us to be the whole puzzle. He loved Gargano and he loved Ciampa, he loved those guys. Loved Fergal [Finn Balor], and those were his guys. So when I say we weren’t his guys, it’s not that he wasn’t a fan of ours, or we weren’t any of his favorite in-ring guys. It’s just, we weren’t the guys that I think he wanted to build the company around. Like I said before, Ciampa had [his number]. We were out for a couple of weeks, both of us got injured. I had surgery, and Ciampa was a little banged up, and Hunter would call or text him and ask, ‘How are things going?’ I had surgery and I’m sitting at home, and I’m trying to rush back because we’ve gotta come back to drop the belts to Gargano and Ciampa, and I heard nothing. So we weren’t Hunter guys. I don’t hold any ill feelings towards him because of that. We just weren’t. But I do think that he was a fan of our work. I know he was, he told us. I think that he was a fan of us as talents, just not who he necessarily wanted to build the company around.”
Did FTR ever try to approach Triple H about their issues? According to Harwood, the answer was yes, but unfortunately, it didn't seem to help.
“Yeah, we could, and we did,” Harwood said. “But he didn’t change anything for us. Again, we weren’t a Kevin Owens to him. We weren’t a Fergal Devitt to him. I don’t blame him for this, but this when I did realize [that]. Going into it, I thought we were Hunter guys, but this is where our frustration started to mount on the main roster, this is when I realized, ‘Oh, okay. We weren’t his guys.”
Could Harwood and Wheeler make it back into a WWE ring and become one of the top babyface teams on the WWE roster? Potentially so, but not being Triple H guys and really not being Mr. McMahon guys could impact the team's free agency decisions considerably.
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