Harwood further opens up about his past interactions with McMahon.
Following Stephanie McMahon’s resignation as co-CEO and Chairwoman of WWE, Vince McMahon was voted back to the company’s Board of Directors and is currently the Executive Chairman.
Vince being back at WWE was brought up on the newest FTR with Dax Harwood podcast. Dax has shared that AEW President Tony Khan granted FTR (Harwood & Cash Wheeler) time off so they can consider the next step in their career(s) as their AEW deals expire in April.
On his newest podcast, Harwood said Vince being back along with him recalling a time when McMahon attempted to talk down on FTR makes his future ‘a little questionable’.
We talk about what I’m gonna do and now that I think about that (Vince McMahon talking down to FTR after a tag title win) and with him back at the helm, makes things a little questionable for me.
Looking back on past interactions with McMahon, Dax stated that there were times when Michael Hayes became annoyed with FTR for their constant visits to McMahon’s office. Harwood said he’d have back and forth arguments with Hayes.
Me and Cash [Wheeler], there was a period when we were talking to Vince [McMahon] or going to his office so much, Michael Hayes kind of would get annoyed… We would just have back and forth arguments, me and Michael Hayes because I’m trying to make a living here.
On the topic of the creative communication with Vince, Dax recalled bringing ideas to him and Vince saying he liked said ideas but asked FTR not to become upset when he uses those ideas for other talents.
Vince did express to the duo how much he enjoyed their work and they would chat about growing up in North Carolina. Harwood added that they also talked to him about the communication through writers and Vince stated that the ideas FTR were passing along did not reach him.
Always good man (Harwood said about FTR’s conversations with Vince McMahon). He always expressed how much of a fan he was of our work and he always listened to our ideas and we brought him a couple ideas and I wish I could remember this exact one. I’m sure Dan [Cash Wheeler] could much better than I can but we gave him this idea and he thought for a second, he said, ‘Ah, that’s a really good idea. I probably won’t use it for you guys but don’t be offended when I do use it for someone else.’ I can’t remember exactly what it was. But I mean, if you weren’t afraid to go talk to Vince, he always had time for you and we weren’t afraid to talk to Vince because he’s a human being just (like) we are and there’s nothing to be scared of. Not one thing to be scared of. He doesn’t put any fear in my heart at all so we would go talk to him and we would go have conversations with him about whatever; growing up in North Carolina or whatever and we would sometimes express our displeasure with how communication is to him because we were given our own writers for our own angles and our own storylines and I would send in stuff every week; how our characters could be portrayed or what angles we could do… Not a great relationship (with the writers) but we had a guy that was appointed to us and I don’t remember his name. I remember he had long, brown hair, like brown hair to here and he had a little sh*tty mustache too. Cool guy, whatever. But, again, just scared of his own shadow just like every other writer there, every other producer there, scared of his own damn shadow, worried that he’s gonna make Vince so mad, Vince is gonna fire him on the spot. So, it did nothing. So we would talk to Vince and I’d say, ‘Hey Vince, I sent these pitches’ or, ‘I sent all these character development ideas to our writer or this writer’ or I would send it to Michael Hayes all the time or John Laurinaitis and send it to him all the time and I was like, ‘Are you not getting it?’ He’s like, ‘I’ve not got anything. I’m glad you told me this. I will fix it.’ It never got fixed but at least he knew I was trying.
The latest on McMahon is he reached a million dollar settlement with former referee Rita Chatterton, who accused McMahon of sexual assault. To read more, click here.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit FTR with Dax Harwood with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.