FTR spoke to SB Nation ahead of AEW All Out, as they try to capture their 4th tag team title reign.
Dax Hardwood and Cash Wheeler are iconoclasts in an industry that favors ceaseless innovation and athletic one-upmanship. Better known by their collective name, FTR, the three-time AEW Teag Team Champions are trying to win their fourth reign with the belts at All Out on Saturday, when they step in the ring with Cope and Cage, and The Young Bucks in a three-way ladder match. I sat down with FTR before their title challenge to talk about what tag team wrestling means to them, their personal Mt. Rushmores, and how Super Nintendo helped form one of the greatest tag teams in wrestling history.
The marked difference between FTR and their peers is how they approach the wrestling business. While their peers go bigger, bolder, and more athletic — this tag team dominates through fundamentals learned through watching the original innovators of tag team wrestling, mastering ring psychology, and putting emotion above high spots.
“Entering a match, I’ve never thought, what can I do crazy today to make people remember, what can I do insane to make people remember,” Dax says. “I don’t care if they remember a specific moment. I just want them to remember the feeling they have watching an FTR match.”
It aligns with FTR’s catch phrase, motto, and ethos “No Flips, Just Fists,” but their arrival in AEW was marked by a rivalry with The Young Bucks, and a critical mistake where they played the Bucks’ game, only to see it come back to bite them.
“It was me that got caught up in that first Young Bucks match,” Cash says. “I tried to beat them at their own game, and it cost us.” It’s a thought that haunted Wheeler for some time, spoiling their grand entrance into AEW, where they hoped to mage an immediate impact. “I did not sleep well for a long, long time after that,” Wheeler says, deep in thought. “I think I’ve learned from those mistakes, but I also know that when the moment calls for it, when there’s something that needs to be done, I’m not afraid to take that little extra risk. I’m not afraid to turn it up — and if I have to take a guy out by doing a suicide dive through the ropes as fast as I humanly can, I’ll do it.”
What makes the three-way ladder match at All Out so fascinating is the clash of styles. Cage and Cope, the “old men” of the contest, helped pioneer the new wave style of tag team wrestling in the early-2000s, The Young Bucks innovated beyond that, evolving the form on the shoulders of guys like Cage and Cope — then there’s FTR, throwbacks to the legendary tag teams of the 1970s and 80s, who put a premium on teamwork, referee manipulation, and all the little things oft forgotten in modern wrestling.
Wheeler explains that the first thing that drew him to tag team wrestling was fighting with his brothers, and mastering the art of teamwork — but that evolved over the years.
“I don’t know if it’s because you have the extra bodies out there, and there’s so many ways you can do misdirection behind the ref’s back, to draw the attention where you want to draw it. There’s just something special about having that type of chemistry when it’s going well and when it’s done right.”
As for Dax Hardwood, his love of the form didn’t take place in the backyard, but in front of his Super Nintendo.
“I remember having my friends over and playing Saturday Night Slam Masters on Super Nintendo, and, you know, two of us could play on the same team. It was three friends. Two of us could play on the same team, and the other one was pretending to be the manager without the controller. I remember from there, that’s where I, honestly, as weird as it sounds, that’s where I fell in love with tag wrestling because, just a small bond through that video game that I got to make with three friends down my street was something I’ll never forget.”
This deep-seated love of tag team wrestling is also one of the things that brought Dax and Cash to AEW. The landscape for tag teams in pro wrestling in the United States was in flux when they first signed with the company in 2021. Viewed in other companies as too much of a resource sink, matches that went too long, or teamwork that was too difficult to shoot for TV, All Elite Wrestling bucked the trend (no pun intended) by making tag teams a focus. With The Young Bucks being a foundational part of All Elite Wrestling it ensured that tag team matches would become a hallmark of the company.
“It’s more exciting in AEW now than it’s ever been in our whole time here, and that’s the honest-to-God truth,” Hardwood says. “We’ve got some young Teams like the Gunn Club, Austin and Colton, we’ve got young teams like the Rascalz that are coming in and trying to take over the spot from FTR.” He continues excitedly, “On top of that, you also have some of the greatest tag teams of all time. Obviously FTR, The Young Bucks, and Cope and Cage, but now with the Austin Creed and, and Kofi, you’ve got The New Level, one of the greatest tag teams of all time. You’ve got Motor City Machine Guns, another set of guys who can lay claim as the greatest tag team of all time. So if you got five of the top tag teams in the last 30 years in one company under one roof, with some of the greatest young talent in the world, I think it’s almost undeniable to say that AEW is the home for tag team wrestling.”
The FTR experience has always been Dax and Cash, but more recently they added a wrinkle to their chemistry in the form of manager Stokely Hathaway. It was a fascinating mashup of styles, with FTR representing traditional, no-nonsense, serious business — and Hathaway, oft serving as a comedic respite, a sidekick, and peerless entertainer. Despite this, FTR bristles at my suggestion that putting them together was like trying to mix oil and water.
“I have to disagree with you,” Dax states firmly. “There is at least one person who knew it was gonna work, and that was me. Back when we were with the other company, we had a meeting with the boss, and,we had pitched the idea of bringing in Stokely, who went by another moniker.We had pitched the idea of bringing Stokely on as a manager for us because I’ve seen his work and I’ve seen how charismatic he was and how funny he was, and I knew we could do some great stuff with him.”
That never came to fruition, but when Stokely’s contract was up, FTR jumped at the opportunity of making another pitch for him to their new boss.
“Fast forward in AEW towards the end of 2021, beginning of 2022, I had talked to Tony, and I said: ‘Hey, I think there’s a guy whose contract is coming up soon, and I think he’d be a great addition for AEW, but I think on top of that, he’d be a great addition for FTR and be our Jim Cornette,’ and that was Stokely.”
Cash chimes in, “Yeah, and behind the scenes, Stokely is a slick businessman, so it makes sense to have him with us, but in front of the camera, he is such a talent, and he is so good at whatever he wants to be good at. If he wants to be funny, he can be funny. If he wants to be serious, he can be serious. He’s so good at all facets of it, and he brings a different element to us, a different style, a different personality.”
Both members of FTR agree that they are both better with Stokley in their corner, and having more fun with him than at any point in their careers. Dax puts it simply: “I don’t know if we could ever go for the rest of our careers without FTR and Stokely being together.”
Everyone has their Mt. Rushmore of professional wrestling, talent and fan alike. The difference when it comes to FTR is their focus on tag team wrestling, but also the appreciation for the history of the business. When I ask for their top four teams of all time both Dax and Cash rattle two names off easily:
“Obviously, Rock and Roll Express because of the quality of matches that they had, how over they were, the amount of box office they drew,” Dax says. “The Midnight Express, mainly because they changed what tag team wrestling could be. If you ask Ricky Morton, if you ask Robert Gibson, if you ask the Fantastics or any of the guys they worked with, they’ll tell you that the Midnight Express, more specifically, Dennis Condry — he took the steering wheel and drove the car that was the tag team wrestling for the 80s.”
Both Dax and Cash also name Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard, but here the pair diverge. Dax begrudgingly gives The Young Bucks their due for evolving tag team wrestling, while also making a name for themselves in the business to the point that the could help form AEW. Meanwhile Cash named The Hart Foundation, specically Bret and Anvil, as a team he always looked up to.
“You might ask us tomorrow, and it’d be a different answer,” Cash adds, “because I really want to say Dr. Death and Bam Bam Gordy, but that could be tomorrow’s answer.”
A reverence for the past, reflective when it comes to their future, and focused on the present: That is FTR in a nutshell. This weekend they have a chance to become four-time AEW tag team champions, but understand it’s not their kind of match, they face brutal opponents, and can’t predict what will happen. The only certainty is that they’re going to bring fists, not flips at All Out.
All Elite Wrestling All Out takes place on Saturday, September 26, live from Hoffman Estates, Illinois beginning at 8 p.m ET, and can be purchased through HBO Max in the United States, as well as Prime Video, YouTube, and DAZN internationally. The pre-show will begin streaming live on YouTube at 7 p.m. ET.