Wheeler stated that it’s surreal to see how the fans have been reacting to them.
Heading into Ring of Honor Death Before Dishonor on July 23rd, the reigning ROH, AAA and IWGP Tag Team Champions FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) returned to the Battleground Podcast.
The duo were asked to speak about the reactions they have been receiving from crowds during this stretch of their careers. Wheeler said it is weird and surreal considering they’ve been bad guys for a lengthy period of their careers together.
Harwood expressed that they are the antithesis of babyfaces, meaning that they did not have to change anything about their presentation and the fans just got onboard.
Wheeler: Yes, yes [it’s weird being as popular with the fans as we are right now].
It’s kind of surreal right now honestly, just because it’s been so unexpected, at least for us because again, being bad guys for so long and being good at being bad guys, you just kind of expect to always be more like The Midnights who were, for the most part, always the bad guys and so for it to happen like this on this kind of scale to where merchandise is moving like crazy and the meet-and-greets are selling like crazy and just the people that are tweeting support, tagging support and the fan art, the chants. Yeah, it’s… you can’t prepare for that even though you want to get to that level. You don’t know how to prepare for that when it finally happens because it’s so much overwhelming support.
Harwood: You said ‘super babyface’ and I know what you meant but, I think, especially me, the antithesis of a babyface, you know? The way that we feel, the way that we work, the way that I look, how we’re presented, we’re the antithesis of a babyface. So, I think that being over and the fans loving us, that’s super babyface but you know, again, like I said, being the antithesis of a babyface, never having to change our style, never having to change our talk, the way we do things, that’s the coolest part because now, that tells me they like us, and they want to be on the train with us and I think that they know as well that we’re huge wrestling fans but also, where we come from is where they’ve all come from. We didn’t come from money, we didn’t come from this crazy, luxury life. We started at the very bottom. 5’10 North Carolinians with southern accents, not great bodies but we made it to the top of our profession, maybe can one day go down as the greatest of all time and I think that’s a good underdog story the fans can resonate with and everybody wants to be a part of. We, the two of us, are just lucky enough that it happened to us.
After splitting away from Tully Blanchard, FTR embarked on this run that they are on. Both are grateful for that period in AEW when they worked with Tully and learned a lot from him.
Harwood stated that he could feel the crowd shift some time before the Tully split came. He feels that it took them separating from Blanchard to get the fans fully behind them.
Wheeler: I think it was one of those things where our time with Tully [Blanchard] paid huge dividends for us. Like career-wise, being associated with Tully is something that holds a lot of value to people that understand wrestling and respect wrestling and just the knowledge that he brings and the knowledge he taught us in the couple of years we were together is something I think helped us take another step to where we are now, but it had ran its course and now he gets to go do the Tully Blanchard Enterprises and he can help all these other young guys with a mixture of veterans too that can help some of these younger guys and that’s where he’s gonna be so strongly suited because he can talk more for them and he has so much knowledge for all these guys like a Toa [Liona] and Kaun and those guys so I figure it works out beautifully for all of us because I do think that severing those ties, I don’t know if it was something where the fans finally — that was like the final sign for them that we didn’t want any more outside interference, no underhanded tactics. It was just back to what it was in the beginning, Dax and Cash and I think that was the final thing where it’s like, okay, now, that’s what we want.
Harwood: I could feel the shift of change coming through the fans. He and I talked about a couple of months before it actually happened. Like man, they want it really bad and us dropping him allowed them to say, okay, now we can kind of voice our opinion, voice how we feel because they don’t have to be bad guys anymore and so I think that just, again, I’ve said it before but just allowing the fans to come party with us. That was the tipping point for that.
FTR are defending their ROH World Tag Titles against The Briscoes (Mark & Jay Briscoe) at Death Before Dishonor, which is a rematch from their Supercard of Honor clash in April.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Battleground Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
