Dax Harwood Blasts Bryan Alvarez, Says Alvarez ‘Doesn’t Get’ Professional Wrestling

On the newest edition of the FTR Podcast, the always-controversial Dax Harwood blasted Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer for recent comments made by Alvarez, such as claims made by Alvarez that Dax has been lying about the contract status of FTR and “working” his fans.

Alvarez had said:

“I have not bought this whole deal that they’ve been telling for months now. I haven’t bought it, not one bit have I bought it. This ‘our deals are up.’ I don’t buy it for a second. I think that they have either been re-signed, or their deals were never coming up, they still have time left on the deals. And this whole thing has just been a storyline to set up this deal right here [Gunns vs FTR]. They come out, they’re over. The one thing I will say is I think the fans believe it, because when they announced this, it’s funny the reaction they got was the crowd kind of died. I think the crowd believes they’re leaving. This is another one, it’s like. Listen. Dax, brother. FTR is an absolutely fantastic team. They were deserving of being the tag team of the year in 2022. They were the best tag team in the world. If you want people to get interested in your matches, just have them. You haven’t had one big match where the fans have not been into it. They’ve been into every single solitary tag match you’ve had. You do not need a long storyline, where you’re teasing. Even if their deal IS up in April, I am so sick of people talking about how they might want to go somewhere else. How is this helping AEW? It’s now a storyline, all these guys going on Twitter, and crying about how they want to leave! This is not what this company needs! It needs FTR to have great fucking tag team matches, go in there, win the tag team titles, we don’t need this aspect of the storyline. That they may quit. I don’t know. Golly. This business has passed me by.

Dax had a strong response.

On their contract status not being mentioned on TV: “Not one single time, dude. Not one time have we mentioned anything with our contracts on TV. The only time I’ve mentioned it is on my Twitter, where I talk about my personal life, and on this podcast. That’s okay if he doesn’t buy it. That’s totally okay if he doesn’t buy it. What I will say are the tons of other people who buy it. And the tons of other people that were in the arena that night when I put our careers on the line, and like I said, they audibly gasped. At the fact that I put that on the line, and they were like ‘oh my god, we don’t know what’s gonna happen.’ Or the thousands of people that tweet at me, and they don’t know what we’re gonna do.”

On the injuries he works through: “I’ve been very transparent with what I’m gonna do, very transparent that I’m not playing one company against another. But y’know, he’s telling me what I should and shouldn’t do, ‘go and have great matches. Everybody wants to see FTR have great matches. Just do that.’ No, dude! That is the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Great matches are icing on the cake. The great matches are icing on the cake. I want them to *care* about me. I want them to care about *Cash*. And they do, man. They fucking love us! They love us, dude! A love that outside of my wife and daughter I never thought I could feel. And now I want to reciprocate that love to them, and I want to do that through… this is so overused… through my art. I’m sacrificing my body, torn bicep here, two knee surgeries here, one knee surgery here, torn labrum here, torn labrum in my hip from my God blessed groin to my ass, and I do it because I fucking love them.”

Dax on if it matters if it’s ‘real’ or not: “So whether this is a story or not, whether this is, as he says, not real, or whether he buys it or not… why does it matter? Professional wrestling is about emotion, professional wrestling is about story. If we didn’t have the fuckin’ story with the Ass Boys from 8-10 months ago, if we didn’t start that, and finish it off with this, if this is ‘just a story’, why would anybody care about this match we’re having?”

On needing a great story to have a truly great match: “Did he ever say that in any other Loser Leaves Town match? Listen. Having a great match, cold, is something you should be proud of, right? For example, us vs Aussie Open. Completely cold match. And the match *was* designed just to have a great match. But… Aussie Open vs FTR didn’t draw, it wasn’t extended, it didn’t draw *like* the Briscoes match did. To have a ‘great match’ you need to have a great story. To have a monumental match, you have to have a great story. So let’s say it, fuck it. Let’s say all this is a story, okay? Let’s say for over a year, cause if you go back and listen to any of my interviews, or any of my podcasts, whatever. I’ve been very transparent about when our deals expire. We signed a three-year deal in April [2020] with AEW. Cause at the time, that’s all they were giving was the three-year deals. I’ve said that for a year.”

On people being connected to the story: “If all this is a story, and I’ve been ‘planning’ all this for over a year and a half, all this is a story? So fuckin’ what. That’s wrestling. That’s the beauty of wrestling. That’s what draws people into wrestling, that’s what makes people emotionally care about wrestling. Us as wrestlers. As characters. As human beings. Is the fucking story! You don’t just have great matches! Yeah, we could go out there with the Gunns with no backstory at all, give us 25 minutes, and we’ll tear the house down. That’ll be great. The people won’t be emotionally connected to the match like they are right now, and he said ‘there was almost no response because the people believe it so much’? They gasped! I was *there* in the arena. When I got to the back, after I made the announcement, so many people came up to me and hugged me because of how well the segment did. And then if you look at the fucking ratings, dude, they did alright too.”

On wanting to make the fans feel: “Having great matches is awesome. I get it. But having a story, and let’s say all this is fake. Let’s say everything I said over the last year and a half has built up to this moment. So what. So what. That’s wrestling. That’s storytelling. That’s what it’s all about. And if it’s not? And I’ve been telling the truth? So what. That’s wrestling. That’s storytelling, too. Because the people care anyway. Either way we go about it, the people care about it, man. And that’s the business I’m in. I’m probably from now on, the day we’re recording is March 25th 2023, from now on going forward never be awarded a ‘five-star match.’ I don’t give a damn. Cause I don’t just wrestle for them [Alvarez, Meltzer, et al]. I wrestle for everybody. For all the fans. I wrestle for them because I want to make them care, make them feel the way I felt when I was 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16 years old. That’s what I want.”

Dax on Alvarez telling him about wrestling face-to-face: “Now what I say to Alvarez is. I would imagine you’re gonna be at a scrum, or you’re going to be at an AEW pay-per-view. Dude, I’m not your friend. But I want you, the you behind this mic, I want you to keep the exact same energy. I want you to come to my face and explain, explain professional wrestling to me. Please. Explain it to me and tell me why the way I’ve done it, on a mainstream level for ten years, is ‘wrong.’ And tell me how this five-foot-ten, shitty-ass body, shitty-ass mustache, bald-ass, dumbass accent, has made it to the heights I’ve made it. Please tell me, dude. Cause I would love to hear your answer, face-to-face. GodDANG, [Matt], you got me fired up! Invite [Alvarez] to the live show! Tell him to come explain it to me at the live show! I’d love that. I’ll give him his own mic, his own platform, and we can talk about it face-to-face.”

On Alvarez’ claim that ‘they won’t make any more money, they have guarantees’: “Guarantees. Yes. They make guarantees. But again, that’s the short-sightedness of [Alvarez]. He doesn’t understand the business. When I say we can make more money? Let’s just say. Let’s just say Punk and the Elite can work together. And we have Punk and FTR, and Kenny Omega, and we have the Young Bucks. Six, seven, eight, twenty different fresh matches we can have just with these six guys, right? And we can make the company, we can have the company make more money. Imagine if we all decided to stick around. Imagine how much more we would be worth at the end of our contracts, now? That’s what it means to make money. That’s what it means to make money. Yes, they’re gonna make the guarantees we have. But when the contract is up this time, and they want to renegotiate, well, look. Here are the figures. Here are the ratings, the houses drawn, from what we did with this feud. I think we’re worth a little bit more now. Now they can make even more money and give it to their kids, and give it to their families to put away for college, or help them get their first house or first car? That is what it is to make money or draw money, but [Alvarez] doesn’t get it. Because he *thinks* he gets it, so he doesn’t want to learn anymore.”

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