Dax Harwood Weighs In On Doing The Back Shaving and ‘Ucey Hot’ Segments In WWE

On a recent episode of his FTR podcast, Dax Harwood talked about the booking near the end of he and Cash Wheeler’s WWE run (as the Revival) which saw various “creative” ideas designed to embarrass the team, including back shaving and the infamous “Ucey Hot” segment. Read on for some of Dax’s thoughts:

On laughing at the scripts and pitches for the goofy stuff: “I remember they had given us the scripts for what was going to happen, like the back shaving stuff, the ‘Ucey Hot’ and stuff. The writers were so worried handing us this, that when we got it, we started laughing at it because it was funny. They were like, whew, we thought you guys were gonna be upset about this. We were like, no! This is the stuff we’ve been asking to do. We’ve been TRYING to show, asking to show, more character development, more charisma, more personality. In Vince and company trying to make us look ‘less than’ and quote-unquote bury is, it made us happy because we were able to go out and have the fun that we had been wanting to have.”

Dax on if the embarrassing angles being related to their contracts: “We were told that. We were told that, that’s why. We know going into saying ‘no’ to the contracts, we know one of two things: one, they were either going to keep us off television and keep us out of the house shows, that way they would either starve us and we couldn’t make our money, completely make the people forget about us. OR they were going to bring us to TV and make us do embarrassing, silly stuff, or make us lose every single week — which we had been doing anyway — to try to devalue us as characters. We knew one of those were going to happen, and then when they were told us they were worried about giving us these scripts because we were going to be made, we were told point blank: because we weren’t going to sign, their course of action was to make sure us as characters weren’t any more valuable than the little bit of value we had then.”

On the back shaving segment: “When that was presented to us, obviously it’s for embarrassing [us], I’m thinking like… this is childish shit. Like, it’s not even funny. What was supposed to be embarrassing about someone shaving my back? Is it supposed to be embarrassing because Vince [McMahon] thinks its effeminate? Is that him subjecting a certain group of humanity as an embarrassment to humanity, y’know what I mean? Like, what is the embarrassment? The most embarrassing thing is when Cash was walking backwards out of the entrance way and he tripped over the brand new entrance way! That’s embarrassing shit, that’s funny, y’know? If they caught me shitting my pants, that’s embarrassing.”

On what was supposed to be embarrassing about it: “But to say that my friend is shaving my back in the shower, while we’re [in towels]… why is that embarrassing? Because it’s apparently effeminate? That’s, to me, I don’t know. It’s borderline something. We’ll leave it at that.”

On shaving body hair being the norm in pro wrestling: “Dan [Cash] and I probably the only two wrestlers in the world who have complete body hair everywhere. We’re the ones who don’t shave! It’s company that’s image is mostly based on guys who wearing wrestling trunks, that look like underwear, completely shaven and oiled up, that’s supposed to be the most embarrassing thing for us? Whatever. That’s toilet humour, and that’s what Vince likes, I guess.”

Dax on he and Cash no-selling the embarrassing angles: “Even though it didn’t piss us off at all, weren’t mad at all. If there was some sign, or I made a side-eye, or anything of that nature, they’d be like ‘oh, we got ’em. We got ’em.’ And I didn’t want to give them that pleasure.”

On wanting to sell the Ucey Hot angle: “We thought it was funny. I knew going into it I was going to make the absolute most that I could out of it. I wanted to oversell it, and I wanted to show them like… hey, dude. We’re more than what you think. Even if you’re going to try to embarrass us until we leave, we’re gonna have fun doing it. The last thing we did on stage, I did this forward roll, and then I barrel rolled all the way through the curtain to the back. And when we got to the back and stood up, we got a standing ovation from everybody, Vince included.”

On Paul Heyman cozying up to them after: “And Paul Heyman, who I don’t trust anymore than I trust my fuckin’ dog to read the Bible when I go upstairs. He came up to us, and he gave us this hug, and he said ‘oh, you always thought you were gonna get over by being a great wrestler, huh? You thought you’re gonna get over by being a great wrestler. NOW you’re over with the man,’ and he pointed at Vince. I was like, oh God dude, fuck off (laughs).”

On that’s how it is with WWE management: “To be fair, that’s the entire office. Whenever you’re high on Vince’s list, everybody is your best friend. Everybody loves you. Everybody thinks you’re the greatest thing in the world. When Vince doesn’t care about you? That’s when they forget about you, and that’s when they don’t have time for you.”

If using any of the above quotations, please credit FTR h/t 411mania for the transcription.