FTR members Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood will square off in an Owen Hart Memorial Tournament qualifying match next week on AEW Dynamite.
Shortly after the match announcement, Dax Harwood tweeted about the significance of this match. He revealed this will be the, \"First time. Only time.\" that the partners wrestle each other.
The reigning ROH & AAA World tag team champions appeared on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast to discuss the unique matchup.
According to Harwood, they\'ve always wanted to have a match. Interestingly, they had to \"fight\" in order to get the match booked in an AEW ring.
“That was our idea, totally,\" said Harwood. \"We had to fight for it, but that was completely our idea.\"
Harwood said they\'ve always wanted to have a match, but it had to be under the right circumstances.
\"There had to be a reason and this is the perfect reason to do it,\" he continued. \"The Hart family means a lot to both of us personally and professionally. So being able to show respect to Owen Hart and his whole family, what better way to do it than allowing the two biggest Hart family fans in the world compete?”
Convincing Tony Khan
Dax Harwood says FTR will never break up so there hasn\'t been a chance for them to wrestle each other.
\"I’ll retire before we ever even entertain that idea,\" said Harwood, about FTR breaking up. \"I’ll say that right here right now. Print it. Tattoo it. I don’t care. We’re never going to do a breakup angle.\"
When AEW announced the Owen Hart tournament, FTR went straight to Tony Khan and pitched the match idea. Khan liked the idea, but wasn\'t immediately sold.
\"[Tony Khan] did like it, but he was like, ‘Okay, I gotta see if I can make it make sense.’ We just stayed on him about it, ‘Hey, can we? Can we? Can we?’ Finally, he was like, ‘Alright, I got a way where we can make it all work. You’ll do it in Philly. It’s going down.’ So yeah, he liked the idea, and he finally gave us the nod, and here we are.”
Elsewhere in the interview, FTR spoke about their rising popularity. They acknowledged that fans are starting to \"take to them\" because they\'re not \"playing wrestler\" or working a gimmick. They eat, sleep and breathe pro wrestling and fans are smart enough to know you can\'t fake that.
Listen to FTR on the 300th episode of the Wrestling Perspective Podcast:
The finals of the Men\'s and Women\'s Owen Hart Foundation Tournaments will take place in May at AEW Double or Nothing 2022.
