FTR Superstar Dax Harwood has revealed the pros and cons of working for AEW in an exclusive interview with Inside The Ropes’ Kenny McIntosh.
As a member of FTR, alongside partner Cash Wheeler, Harwood has proven himself as one of the finest tag team wrestlers of his generation. With success in AEW, WWE, NJPW, ROH and Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide under his belt, the 38 year old Superstar has seen and done it all in wrestling, with that in mind he is uniquely placed to decide upon his next step when his current contractual obligations end in April.
In an exclusive chat with Inside The Ropes’ own Kenny McIntosh, Harwood revealed that New Japan Pro Wrestling hold interest in his signature, but family considerations could make a switch to Japan a difficult one:
“I thought about pros and cons for everything. I’ve thought about pros and cons if I stay with AEW, I’ve thought about pros and cons if we go to WWE, I’ve thought about pros and cons if we decide to stay on the independent circuit and work the matches that are fun to us that mean a lot to us and then be able to go to New Japan.
And I don’t think that I am giving any, you know, crazy news or this is going to make any kind of headlines, I don’t know. But New Japan has expressed interest in us being with them, and I would absolutely love that, that’s a dream of mine. But then I think about the cons to that, staying away or being away from my family.
I would have to, I’d have to fly my family over to Japan and they’d have to live with me there. There’s no way I could be gone because I love them too much. And I was away from my daughter for such a long period of her life where I was away, and now it’s my time to make that up to her.”
Another option could be to stay in AEW. After debuting on the May 27th 2020 episode of AEW Dynamite the team of FTR, the duo have enjoyed a successful run with the company including claiming victory over Kenny Omega and Adam Page at AEW All Out in September 2020 to capture the AEW World Tag Team Championship, making them the first team to have held tag team titles in both AEW and WWE.
And Harwood admitted that there would be benefits to staying with AEW:
“You know, and then thinking about AEW, the pros and cons there. We would not have had the success that we’ve had over the last three years without Tony Khan and AEW. They’ve provided and given us the opportunity to become what we are now. I mean, you know, I can’t, we talked about the don’t shy away from anything, I can’t tell you there haven’t been times where I felt that we were, our momentum was missed, or we were in some less than situations where we felt we could have been utilised a little bit better.
But any line of work, whether it’s wrestling, entertainment, acting, or working at Starbucks down the street, you always think you deserve better. If you have any kind of, if you have any kind of fondness to your, your own character, or you’re proud of your own character, you always think you deserve better. And I always felt that we did deserve better, you know, and not that’s not to say that I was never happy. Obviously, I was super happy at many times, but there are pros and cons there too, you know.”
The other option for Harwood and Wheeler would be a return to WWE. Whilst they did capture NXT, RAW and SmackDown tag team gold during their tenure with the company, the tandem felt that the tag team division wasn’t getting the respect it deserved. The pair departed when their contracts expired in June 2020 after disappointment at new creative ideas for the team put forward by Vince McMahon. Harwood feels that the team have unfinished business in WWE:
“And then we’re going to talk about WWE, the cons to that, being away from the family on the road, what we were before we came to AEW, I don’t think that we were obviously, we didn’t fulfil what we thought we could fulfil. But the pros of that is, I can go back, we can go back and prove ourselves right in what we thought we deserved. We can prove ourselves right. So there’s, yeah, man, there’s a lot of pros and cons to everything that I’ve thought about.”
Whatever the final destination may be for FTR, Harwood is keen to make the correct decision as he feels it may be the last major move of his career:
“The next decision we make in April, the decision we make will 99.9%, at least for me, maybe not for Cash, 99.9% will be the last thing that I do in professional wrestling. And so it’s very, very, very, very, very important to me.”
A huge thank you to Dax Harwood for taking the time out to speak with Inside The Ropes
If you use any quotes from this interview please provide a link back and h/t to Inside the Ropes.