FTR

Cash Wheeler (left) and Dax Harwood (right) in October 2022

Daniel Marshall Wheeler:
May 17, 1987 (1987-05-17) (age 36)
Asheville, North Carolina, United States

**FTR** (often stylized as **#FTR**) is an American professional wrestling tag team consisting of Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood. The team is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where they are a former one-time AEW World Tag Team Champions. As part of a working relationship between AEW and AEW's Japanese based partner promotion, New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) they are former IWGP Tag Team Champions.

In AEW's sister promotion, Ring of Honor (ROH), they are a former ROH World Tag Team Champions, while in AEW's former Mexican-based partner promotion, Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA), they are a former AAA World Tag Team Champions. Before coming to AEW, they were known for their time in WWE as **The Revival**, under the ring names Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson, respectively.

Regarded as one of the best professional wrestling tag teams in the world, the team was created by Dusty Rhodes in 2014, then as **The Mechanics**, and later simply **Dash and Dawson** when they made their television debut on *WWE NXT*. The team adopted the name The Revival in 2016, referencing "reviving" the classic tag team wrestling style of the 1980s, which has led to the two being compared favorably to The Brain Busters (Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard) and The Midnight Express, particularly the Condrey/Eaton version, two of the top teams of all time. The team uses the phrase "No flips, just fists" to convey their more traditional, mat based in-ring style in contrast to the more high flying style of some contemporary teams.

After being granted their releases by WWE in April 2020, the duo took the name of *FTR*, alternately using the letters to mean "Forever The Revival" as WWE had ownership rights to the name "The Revival". The initialism is also a reference to "F\*\*k the Revival," an inside joke and catch-phrase coined by The Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes on the YouTube series *Being the Elite*. They made their AEW debut on the May 27, 2020 episode of *Dynamite*, winning the AEW World Tag Team Championship the following September at AEW's All Out pay-per-view. That year, *Pro Wrestling Illustrated* ranked them number one on their inaugural *PWI Tag Team 50* list.

All totalled between WWE, AEW, ROH, AAA, and NJPW, FTR are nine-time tag team champions, making them the only team ever to hold championships in all of the five promotions. During 2022 they held the ROH, AAA, and IWPG Tag Team Championships simultaniously. They are also the only people to have jointly won the WWE 24/7 Championship.

## Professional Wrestling Career

### Background

#### Early teamming

Wheeler and Harwood were longtime friends before being made into a team, and had wrestled together on the independent circuit. In 2012, Harwood was hired by WWE based in part on a match he previously had with Wheeler, and performed there under the name Scott Harwood, mostly in tag team matches on *NXT* and live shows. Wheeler had hoped to join WWE, with the two also hoping to form a tag team there. In 2014, Wheeler joined the WWE Performance Center, and on his very first day of promo training, performed a promo with Harwood; WWE producer Dusty Rhodes immediately became convinced that the two needed to become a team. According to a May 2020 interview of the duo, Rhodes was not only highly influential in both the creation and development of the team, but had "unwavering faith" in them even as some of the other coaches had doubts, and was their "biggest supporter and pushed for [them] harder than anybody" until his passing in 2015.

Wheeler and Harwood, who were both from North Carolina, acknowledged that their southern accents contributed to the lack of faith some coaches had for them at the Performance Center (with then-WWE chairman Vince McMahon's dislike for southern accents being well-known backstage). They were notably told that they would not get to do many promos, although Rhodes, a fellow resident of North Carolina, insisted that they should.

The duo won their first tag team championship, the NXT Tag Team Championhip for their first time in November 2015. Afterwards, the duo won the titles one more time, thus becoming the first team to win the NXT Tag Team Championship twice before losing them in end of the 2016.

#### Main Roster career

Soon after in April 2017, the duo made their debut in the main roster; Although a stagnated career caused by injuries and other feuds on the lower card, lead the duo to ask for their release from their WWE contracts, after a match between them and the Lucha House Party. This, however, led them to rise and eventually winning the Raw Tag Team Championships in early 2019, before winning them once again, only to lose the titles in a three-way match. Since then, the duo only won the 24/7 Championship on the episode of Raw after Summerslam, after the duo performed the "*Hart Attack*" on Truth and simultaneously pinned him to become the first co-champions However, in the same night, they lost the title. Since then, the duo began a rivalry between them and The New Day, as part of a feud between Randy Orton and Kofi Kingston, that led them to win the Smackdown Tag Team Championships and thus becoming the first-ever WWE Tag Team Triple Crown Champions. They were later drafted to Smackdown, where the after attempts to win back the Smackdown Tag Team Championships, the duo made their last televisived appearance on February 2020. Eventually, the duo were granted their releases from WWE, fifteen months after their request in January 2019.

In an interview the following month, the duo explained that they had asked for their releases because "the tag team division doesn't get respect, it doesn't get the time that we think a lot of these teams deserve and we want to take chances on ourselves", and that they felt that otherwise they would have "no legacy aside from our NXT stuff". According to the duo, WWE management originally thought that FTR was bluffing in order to receive a push, and that the push they received shortly after was a result of it, even after they repeatedly insisted that they did not want to win titles because they believed WWE's tag team championships were meaningless. In the same May 2020 interview, Wheeler and Harwood stated their belief that that was the moment Vince McMahon and WWE executives realized that the two actually intended to leave the company; this resulted in them being permanently taken off-television until their release.

### New Japan Pro-Wrestling (2022-present)

On the May 25, 2022 episode of *Dynamite*, the United Empire's Jeff Cobb and Great-O-Khan interrupted a match for the ROH World Tag Team Championship between FTR and Roppongi Vice, attacking both teams. The following week, FTR and Beretta were attacked by United Empire's leader Will Ospreay, who made his surprise debut in AEW along with other United Empire stablemates Aaron Henare and Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis). On the June 10, edition of *Rampage*, FTR and Beretta picked up a victory against Ospreay, Davis and Fletcher.

On June 17, it was announced a winner takes all triple-threat tag-team match between FTR, Roppongi Vice, and Cobb and O-Khan for the ROH Tag Team Championships and the IWGP Tag Team Championships was announced at Forbidden Door. On June 26, at Forbidden Door, FTR defeated United Empire's Jeff Cobb and Great O-Khan and Roppongi Vice's Beretta and Rocky Romero to retain the ROH Tag Team Championship and win the IWGP Tag Team Champions, becoming triple champions, due to also holding the AAA and ROH World Tag Team Championships. On November 5 at Battle Autumn, FTR made their first Japanese appearance in NJPW, successfully defending the IWGP Tag Team Championship against Jeff Cobb and Great-O-Khan. They lost the titles to Bishamon (Hirooki Goto and Yoshi-Hashi) on January 4, 2023, at Wrestle Kingdom 17 in Tokyo Dome.

## Professional wrestling style and persona

FTR have been praised by their old-school style and knowledge of tag team wrestling. According to Harwood, the tag team approach to wrestling is having boundaries and rules and work with them, usually breaking them. Pro wrestling booker and manager Jim Cornette, known for his old-school approach, has praised the team on several occasions. The team uses the phrase "No flips, just fists" to convey their more traditional, mat based in-ring style in contrast to the more high flying style of some contemporary teams. The duo said that they were modeled after The Brain Busters and the Condrey/Eaton version of The Midnight Express.

Dusty Rhodes gave Wheeler his WWE ring name, Dash Wheeler; Wheeler wanted to call his character "Cash" instead of "Dash", but Rhodes preferred the latter because it reminded him of his son Cody's nickname, "Dashing", while Wheeler was chosen due to its similarity to Wheeler. After the two left WWE, Harwood and Wheeler changed their names to Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler, now using their real last names while paying tribute to Demolition's Ax and Smash.

The duo's finishing move, called "Shatter Machine" in WWE, was inspired by the "Codebreaker" used by Chris Jericho, whom the two saw as a major inspiration; although WWE staff had told them they didn't need it, the two asked for Jericho's approval to use the move, which he gave them. The duo confirmed after leaving WWE that they would change the move's name. As FTR, the duo renamed the move to the "Goodnight Express", an homage to The Midnight Express. They later renamed the move again to "Big Rig" after the late Brodie Lee. FTR also uses an assisted spike piledriver called the "Mind Breaker" as their double-team finishing move in AEW, modeled after the Brain Busters's own finisher.

In November 2020, Harwood and Wheeler revealed in an interview with TalkSPORT journalist Alex McCarthy that FTR wanted to join AEW, despite being offered a huge amount of money to stay in the WWE, because they kept getting pulled from main roster events in the WWE. Harwood stated "We knew it was time for us to move on because money is great, and I am so fortunate and lucky to take care of my beautiful wife and perfect little six year old daughter because of professional wrestling, but that's what it's because of – professional wrestling." Wheeler stated "Once we got pulled from all of our dates on the main roster, it was down to NXT as the option and we talked to Hunter at length, there were offers on the table that were very tempting because we loved NXT and we loved our time there, but at the end of the day like Dax said, we knew that our time there was done."

## Other media

Wheeler and Harwood made their video game debuts as playable characters in *WWE 2K17*, and has since appeared in *WWE 2K18*, *WWE 2K19*, and *WWE 2K20*.

## Personal life

Harwood married to Maria Nickopoulos since 2012 where both together have a daughter, Finley Gray (born 2014).

Harwood played college football during his teenage years at East Carolina University before transferring to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where he would get a degree in business communication. His family's home in Whiteville, North Carolina was massively damaged by Hurricane Florence in 2019.

Wheeler and Harwood would both say in a interview in May 2020 that, out of all the matches they wrestled together up to that point in time, that their all-time favorite match was a two-out-of-three falls match between them and American Alpha which took place in a house show during their NXT days, while their favorite on-screen match was two-out-of-three falls match against DIY at NXT TakeOver: Toronto in 2016 that had "a special magical atmosphere", where they both said "In WWE, that'll be our legacy. We're very very proud of that match." On November 7, 2020 in an interview, Wheeler and Harwood described their upcoming match with The Young Bucks at Full Gear as a "dream match," both saying "When you go around calling yourself the best tag team of the generation, you cannot get too much more pressure than that. So, this match, to a lot of people, it is a dream match and it is a match we are excited about." with Wheleer even stating "Dream match label or not, I think Dax and I always put a lot of pressure on ourselves, to go out there and perform at the highest level and to be the best. So, the match with The Young Bucks notwithstanding, we always have a lot of pressure on our shoulders." On November 11, 2020, four days later after Full Gear, Harwood would release a statement on his Twitter account where he expressed a big praise for their match with the Young Bucks where he hoped for a rematch. On April 4, 2022, Harwood said on Twitter account that their match with The Briscoe Brothers at Supercard of Honor was the best match of the duo's career where he also described the match as "their masterpiece".

## In wrestling

* **Double team finishing moves**
	+ *Big Rig* (Flapjack (Harwood) / Double knee facebreaker (Wheeler) combination) - adopted from Chris Jericho
	+ *Mind Breaker* (Aided Spike piledriver) - adopted from Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard
* **Double team signature moves**
	+ Backbreaker hold (Harwood) / Diving elbow drop (Wheeler) combination
	+ Bearhug (Wheeler) / Diving leg drop (Harwood) combination
	+ Belly-to-back suplex (Wheeler) / Diving leg drop (Harwood) combination
	+ *Clubberin'* (Double beat down to an opponent in the corner)
	+ Drop toe-hold (Wheeler) into a running elbow drop (Harwood)
	+ Figure-four leglock (Harwood) followed by a diving stomp to the opponent's knee (Wheeler)
	+ Powerbomb (Wheeler) / Diving clothesline (Harwood) combination
	+ German suplex (Harwood) / European uppercut (Wheeler) combination
	+ Superplex (Harwood) followed by a Frog splash (Wheeler)
* **Cash Wheeler's finishing moves**
	+ Double knee facebreaker
	+ Inverted figure four leglock
* **Dax Harwood's finishing moves**
	+ Inverted figure four leglock
	+ Flowing DDT
* **Nicknames**
	+ **"The Top Guys"**
	+ **"GTTOAT (Greatest Tag Team of All Time)"**
* **Entrance themes**
	+ **"Darkside of TR"** by All Elite Wrestling

## Championships and accomplishments

* **All Elite Wrestling**
	+ AEW World Tag Team Championship (1 time)
* **Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide**
	+ AAA World Tag Team Championship (1 time)
* **New Japan Pro-Wrestling**
	+ IWGP Tag Team Championship (1 time)
* **Ring of Honor**
	+ ROH World Tag Team Championship (1 time)
* ***Pro Wrestling Illustrated***
	+ Tag Team of the Year (2022)
	+ Ranked Wheeler No. 98 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the *PWI 500* in 2019
	+ Ranked Harwood No. 103 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the *PWI 500* in 2019
	+ Ranked FTR No. 1 of the top 50 Tag Teams in the *PWI Tag Team 50* in 2020
* **Wrestling Observer Newsletter**
	+ Tag Team of the Year (2022)
	+ Feud of the Year (2022) vs. The Briscoe Brothers