FTR Reveal Original Inspiration For Their AEW Entrance, How They Are Always Planning Ahead
FTR is always planning ahead and working together to leave their mark on the world of professional wrestling.
Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard and talked about their plans for their post-WWE careers. The two debuted in May and have since signed contracts with AEW, and FTR’s Cash says they knew they wanted to branch out but nothing was definitive as far as how they wanted to debut. Cash noted that they did collaborate and are very happy with the final product, arriving in a vintage pickup truck accompanied by a theme song by Matt Koon.
Cash: “I never really had a set idea in mind for what we wanted to do, we just knew that we wanted to ‘spread our wings’, so to speak. We wanted to go out in the world and test ourselves and try and reignite something that we felt was kinda lost there for a little bit. With AEW, when we finally figured out that this is really going to happen and we’re going to show up here, that was all really a spur of the moment type stuff. I don’t know if there was a whole lot of thought put into it beforehand, it was just something that once we had the ideas rolling it all snowballed, [we thought] ‘Oh, this would be cool, let’s try this’. You saw the final product which we were very happy with, we thought it turned out very well but there wasn’t a long-term in place there.”
Dax Harwood says he had been thinking of ideas for a long time and once he saw what AEW was, he started fleshing things out more. He described his love for off-road vehicles and Ford Broncos and said that was one inspiration, and noted it was a collaboration and compromise since Cash was also a fan of classic cars.
Dax: “So in contrast to exactly what Cash just said there, I’d been thinking about it for a very long time. I had ideas of what I wanted to do when we left, but when we see the AEW Dynamite show premiere I immediately starting thinking about how we could debut. My initial idea was that we were going to do ATVs because I love riding four-wheelers. My mom had this hunting camp and they had acres and acres of land and I loved doing that, so that was my initial idea. Then I became infatuated with [Ford] Broncos and I started to talk to Cash about that and he loves classic cars, so we said OK let’s maybe do a classic truck because it’s something in between a Bronco and a classic car. I’d been putting ideas in my phone, my notes, so I had [an early] plan.
“I’m a huge, huge wrestling fan and I study it maybe more than anybody else in the world, almost to a point where it’s disgusting. Like Cash said, we had an idea of what we wanted to do and we want to leave a legacy in professional wrestling. We love money and we love what professional wrestling has given us monetarily but we wanted to leave a legacy more importantly than anything. Wrestling is my first love and I wanted to do something special for it before I left.”
While ATVs and wrestling might bring “Stone Cold” Steve Austin to mind, Cash says it was actually another wrestling legend that inspired his vehicle of choice. Cash explained that he’s a huge fan of Eddie Guerrero and said that he wanted something similar to when Eddie would drive a different car to the ring each week. He says they are always planning ahead and noted that just because an idea doesn’t happen right away, it doesn’t mean they still won’t try and implement it down the line.
Cash: “Just to add to that, we are always planning ahead. It doesn’t matter how far ahead it is, if it’s years down the line or if it’s next week. There’s always plans and ideas, we’re always texting back and forth ‘What about this? What about this?’ and it doesn’t even matter if it’s conceivable at this point. There might be things that we might not be able to do for who knows how long, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to stop us from being ready when it does happen. Like Dax said, he wanted the ATVs and I thought that was cool. Then I was watching an Eddie [Guerrero] match—big surprise—I’m a huge Eddie fan and I think he’s one of the best all-around wrestling in history, hands down. I always thought his low rider entrance where every week he had a different car, I thought it was amazing, so we spitballed back and forth a bit and settled on the truck because it’s an ode to everything that we like, and that’s how we decided on it.”
Related: FTR Pick The Classic Matches That ‘Define’ Tag Team Wrestling, Recall Their Feud With American Alpha
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