Dax Harwood Reveals When FTR Started Talking To AEW, Says Mark Carrano Was Untrustworthy

On a recent edition of the FTR podcast, Dax Harwood revealed just when he and partner Cash Wheeler began talks with Tony Khan. Dax gave some insight into what finally led to WWE granting he and Cash their release, and who the first person they contacted from AEW was. Read on for more details:

On Talent Relationship VP Mark Carrano not being a man of his word: “Mark Carrano had called us and said ‘look, we got some bad news for you guys. You know how we added two months onto Cash’s contract because of his broken jaw? Well, Dave, I’m sorry, we’re gonna have to add on four months to your contract for your torn bicep.’ I said Mark, you just told us a few weeks prior that you were not going to add on the time, that you would honor that. You gave us your word. He said ‘I’m sorry, that’s Vince’s call, not my call.’ Who am I supposed to trust now? You promised me that we were gonna be done here in July. So now you know why nobody trusts Mark Carrano.”

On the ultimatum for FTR’s release: “So he called us two days before they released the announcement. He gave us an ultimatum, we’ll about it on a later episode. The ultimatum was obviously lopsided, all for them, nothing for us. We lost a shit ton of money to a lop-sided agreement for [WWE], but as long as we could get out of our contracts that’s what we wanted.”

On deciding to contact somebody from AEW: “The day that Mark Carrano called us, so two days before the announcement [of the Revival’s release from WWE] was made online, he called us and said ‘you don’t have to give us an answer right now, talk about it, give me a call back.’ I called Cash. We said, should we talk to Cody, or the Bucks, or Tony? He said yeah, let’s do that.”

On messaging the Young Bucks: “So we sent the Bucks a text and said hey, there’s a possibility that we may be leaving WWE, would you guys ever be interested in having us? And he said ‘well I would love to have you.’ That’s all we needed to know. So we called Mark Carrano, yes, we agree to your terms. Please give us our release, and thank you.” So he gave us our release.

On when they started talking with Tony Khan: “The following day, whenever the contracts were cut and we got the paperwork from Mark Carrano that said we were officially released, is when we started talking contracts with Tony Khan.”

On not having a 90-day no-compete clause: “We had no 90-day no-compete clause. That was our ask. If we give all this, and you take all this money from us, at least just let us not have the ninety days. Let us just go out and do what we need to do immediately.”

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