Dax Harwood is hopeful that FTR will be given more opportunities to speak on the microphone in 2023.
On the latest episode of FTR with Dax Harwood, the All Elite Wrestling star spoke about FTR’s promo on AEW Dynamite last week and how it was their first opportunity to talk in the ring like that since the “fight like an 8-year-old girl” promo in 2022.
“And you know that’s something that me and Cash talked to Tony [Khan] about was like, dude, if we’re gonna — okay, this is full disclosure and hope I’m not saying anything out of place or out of turn, and I’m not trying to stir anything up,” Dax Harwood insisted. “Well, for one reason or another, whatever it is, I felt last year was the biggest year of FTR’s career ever.
“And I mean that creatively, I mean that artistically, and I mean that as far as getting over too. But I also feel, and I’ve said this before, I think. I also feel that there was an opportunity missed. You think about it; you look back, June or July. We were, and I’m saying this humbly outside of [CM] Punk in AEW, and maybe Bryan [Danielson] and Mox as well. We were, and please correct me if you think I’m wrong, and I won’t take offense at all.
“We were probably the hottest baby faces in the company at the time. And on TV, there were no angles for us. No storylines. And we ended up having between six and seven tag team matches on television all year. And I feel like, and I felt like the boat was kind of missed on our momentum last year.”
Matt Koon stated that he believes FTR managed to create their own momentum last year, which wasn’t taken advantage of. A statement that Harwood agreed with.
“And that’s how I feel. And with me saying that, I’m sure there’s gonna be a ton of fans that say that I’m complaining or I’ve got a bad attitude, and I’m sure there’s going to be peers as well and co-workers, but it’s not that,” Dax Harwood said. “I just feel like our momentum was missed, and the opportunity to capitalize on that momentum was missed.
“And I told Tony, and Cash did as well, that in coming back if we stick around because we’ve had talks about what’s going to make us happy or what we need to do to stay here, and of course, I would love to have great matches. I would love to have a great match and what fans consider a great tag team match. I would love to have that every single week. But that doesn’t help us grow as characters but also as entities in people’s minds.
“What we need is we need to connect with them on a deeper level. And to do that, like for example, the eight-year-old girl promo, after I cut that promo, I feel like we got even more over than any kind of five-star match would have made us, and so we told Tony those are the things that we need. We need an opportunity to speak so that people can feel for us one way or the other. If they only feel for us, as in we’re great wrestlers, there’s a ceiling to that.
“But we got to make them feel. We got to humanize ourselves and make them feel for us. So I think that Tony may be trying to make good and show that hey, he’s on board. He wants to make this right. But yes, that’s the first time we’ve had an opportunity to really speak since the Finley promo, and maybe those are the only two opportunities we really had to speak in the ring.”
READ MORE: Dax Harwood Hopes FTR Can Work With Main Event Level Talent In 2023
What do you make of Dax Harwood’s comments? Do you think there were opportunities to make FTR even bigger in 2022 that were missed? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the FTR Podcast with a link back to this article for the transcription.
