Dax Harwood Details How Stokely Hathaway Became FTR’s Manager

AEW star Dax Harwood recently revealed how Stokely Hathaway became FTR’s manager. Stokely joined All Elite Wrestling in 2022 and has since managed several wrestlers.

He linked up with Harwood and Cash Wheeler on AEW television in April 2025. In a recent appearance on the Beyond The Bell Podcast, Harwood was asked about the behind-the-scenes process that led to this pairing.

Harwood revealed that he wanted Stokely to be FTR’s manager from the days when they all were a part of WWE. However, that did not happen, as Hathaway was seemingly involved in other storylines at the time. Dax revealed that when FTR’s time with Tully Blanchard was coming to an end, he talked to AEW President Tony Khan and pitched for Stokely to be their manager. While Tony eventually hired the 35-year-old, his union with Dax and Cash was delayed, as the duo had started getting immense positive reactions from the crowd.

“The crazy thing is, when we were with the other company… the story is all out there. We were asking for our release. We wanted to leave. We wanted to quit. So we had a meeting with the head of creative, and he asked me what I wanted to do. So, there’s this name; I can’t remember his name in NXT, but I said Stokely’s name. I said, ‘I’d love to have him as our manager.’ The company said, ‘Oh, that’s not a bad idea, but he’s going into something else.’ Fast forward to 2021, we were starting to wrap things up with Tully Blanchard,” he said.

“I talked to Tony, and I said, ‘Hey, I think there is a guy in NXT who is an incredible mouthpiece. He can bump his a** off, and he’s very entertaining. I said, ‘I think he will be a great gift for us, and I think we can benefit from him being our manager.’ So Tony hired him at my request, and we were supposed to immediately start teaming up together in 2022,” he added.

The former AEW World Tag Team Champion added that Stokely’s partnership with other talents didn’t quite work out because the talents probably felt that he was overshadowing them. Dax Harwood further added that he and Cash have no such problems because they are aware of what Stokely brings to the table.

“But as luck and fate had it, fans, just all of a sudden, started connecting with us on a different level than they’d ever connected. They started liking us. And so, we didn’t wanna bring in Stokely to be with us at the time, but we still had already got him the job. And so, we went on to do a few things, be with a few people, (and) it didn’t work out. I think it didn’t work out because some of the people he was working with were a little upset that he was outshining them,” he said.

“Me and Cash knew, after 11 years of being together, having somebody like Stokely, as entertaining as him, as quick-witted as him, bringing him on board is only gonna make us shine even brighter. Which is why we allow him to do most of the speaking, because we know what he brings to the table as far as a whole other tool for FTR. So, we are lucky to have him, man, and I think he’s the best in the world at what he does right now.” [14:57-17:34]

Check out the video below:

Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler are set to challenge Brodido (Bandido and Brody King) for the AEW World Tag Team Championship at Full Gear on November 22.

Please credit the Beyond The Bell Podcast and give an H/T to 411Mania for the transcription if you take quotes from this article.