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FTR Explain Their Approach to Wrestling, How They Developed Their Ring Psychology

October 21, 2020 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris
FTR AEW Dynamite Dax Harwood cash Wheeler Image Credit: AEW

– During the latest AEW Unrestricted, Tony Schiavone and Aubrey Edwards interviewed AEW tag team champions FTR (Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood), who discussed their approach to tag team wrestling. Below are some highlights.

Dax Harwood on approach FTR has to tag team wrestling: “A lot of the guys that we’re working with now, I think there’s some of them that still have a little bit of apprehension towards us because I think that they think, ‘Oh, here are these old WWE guys coming in. They’re gonna try to change the culture,’ and that’s not the case at all. The gimmick is FTR follow the rules, and things like that. And it’s part of our gimmick, but in real life, we believe that. We really do believe that because it’s easy for you to go out there — and a lot of guys think it’s creative to get four guys in the ring, or six guys in the ring, or eight guys in the ring and do a whole bunch of stuff, and they think that’s the creative part. But to me, to us, the creative part is having boundaries, and having rules, and working within those rules, so the fans can follow it. Because if Michael Jordan steps out of bounds, I guess now LeBron [James], steps out of bounds, people are like, ‘Oh! The whistle blew because he stepped out of bounds.’ Same thing with us. If we didn’t hold the tag rope and make a tag, Aubrey Edwards steps in and says, ‘No’. And people can say, ‘Oh, that’s because of this’. So, it’s just part of the storytelling aspect for us.”

Cash Wheeler on needing everyone to play their role in a match with FTR: “We need everybody to play their role. People think it’s creative to get four guys involved without it making sense, but it’s not. The creativity is making it make sense or finding ways around the rules with the distraction with the referee. But it’s not just about us and it’s not just about us getting our stuff in. We have a whole group of people out there that have a job to do, and it’s our job and our responsibility to make sure that they can do theirs effectively. We got to give you (Aubrey Edwards) authority. We’ve got to make sure people respect to the referee, because if it’s UFC, if you touch a referee or you disrespect the referee, then you pay for it. We have Tony [Schiavone] who has to tell our story for us, and if we’re making his job impossible to do, then it’s not going to come across well and nobody’s gonna be able to follow it. So, we have to do our part, so you can do your part, so he can do his part. It’s a group effort, and if we’re in it just for ourselves, then nobody wins.”

Wheeler on why they can’t let the refs see them cheat: “If the ref sees us cheat, and we get disqualified, in ref psychology, we lose, which means we get less money. … And if we cheat in front of the referee, if Aubrey sees us cheat, the heat’s not on us anymore. The heat’s on the referee for not doing a good job. So, then it’s all null and void. We don’t get the heat that we should be getting for breaking the rules. The referee gets heat for not doing their jobs correctly, and the babyfaces get nothing out of it. The attention is drawn away from them now, and everything is directed to the referee. So if you’re going to do it, do it right, so everybody comes out looking better than before.”

Dax Harwood on today’s wrestling fans: “And also like, going off of exactly what you just said, the fans today, they are smart, obviously. They’re smart to the business, they get it, and they understand. So, they’re never gonna hate us. They’re never gonna hate us as heels, but we can make them feel a certain way and get lost in the movie, get lost in the portrait we’re trying to paint, and make them care so much about these babyfaces, feel a certain way about these babyfaces. And they want to see these babyfaces beat us. And that’s where the money is the babyfaces beating us. So, exactly what you said. If we can get the fans to say, ‘Oh! Why did they have to do that?’ Or, ‘They don’t have to do that’, or whatever, and they care so much, and even subconsciously, care so much about these babyfaces, they want to see them beat us because they care about it.”

Harwood on where he developed his ring psychology: “It just subconsciously happened. I don’t know. I would watch things, and sometimes, I had this notebook and I’d write down — because in North Carolina, even in 2010, we would get made fun of by Ricky Morton, or by Bobby Eaton, or Dennis Condrey, or George South. We’d get made fun of if they saw us calling our match in the back. So, I always had a notebook, and I would watch [Ric] Flair and [Ricky] Steamboat. They would do tackle, drop down, leapfrog, baseball slide, take off, body slam, kick off, arm drag, arm drag, and I would write that spot down and I would think to myself, ‘How can I call that in a match,’ you know, in the best way? Yes, in the ring. And so, I would think, ‘Tackle, dropdown,’ whatever. And then, I would look through them, and then I’d say– I think it was honestly the first time I got like psychology and understood what it was. I was watching Bret [Hart] vs. [British] Bulldog from SummerSlam 92 for the 100th time, and the first time Bulldog gave Brett a crucifix pin, one, two, kick out, and then gave him an arm drag and a hold, then through the heat, he started to come up a little bit. He took off. Brett went for the clothesline. Bulldog crooked him for the crucifix again, and Brett dropped him with a Samoan Drop. And the light went off in my head, and I was like, ‘That’s the simple form. That’s wrestling psychology.’ So, now I try to — and that’s kind of where I got it. Just being a nerd I guess.”

Cash Wheeler on how FTR learned on the Carolina wrestling scene: “We were lucky to be in the Carolines where there are the guys he’s named who have been around for 20+ years that cared enough to take the time to tell us if we did something wrong. Or, if we were to have a match with them, they could explain to the two of us, ‘Oh no. We can’t do that here. It doesn’t [make sense,’ Like you have these epiphanies. It was just show after show, being lucky enough to work with guys who are smarter than us, better us, and who had been trained the right way in a time period where the fans did believe. And they knew how to pull the strings just the right way, at just the right time, to get the right reactions.”

If using the above quotes, please credit FTR on AEW Unrestricted, with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.

article topics :

AEW, FTR, Jeffrey Harris