Confirmed: Top Act Re-Signs With AEW
AEW ties down one of its expiring acts to a new contract.
As if last week's symbolic Dynamite victory over The Gunns wasn't confirmation enough, FTR's Dax Harwood has stated that he and tag team partner Cash Wheeler have, indeed, re-signed with AEW.
The new AEW World Tag Team Champion confirmed as much during a recent episode of his FTR with Dax podcast. Harwood claimed that it was never his intention to spark a bidding war between AEW and WWE, though sticking with Tony Khan's promotion was, in his eyes, the right choice for him, his family, and Wheeler.
Said Harwood (h/t Fightful):-
"As I've said a million times. Never did I want a bidding war between WWE and AEW or to play one side against the other. I appreciate everyone that reached out to me, through other, no pun intended, endeavors or avenues and were interested in having us back, wanted to have us back, said they made a mistake in letting us go. For me, Cash, Maria (his wife), Finley (his daughter), the best course of action for us was to stick around in AEW."
Continuing, Dax explicitly stated that FTR had re-signed with AEW, adding that the duo knew this was what they wanted to do prior to Vince McMahon's return to WWE:-
"Yes. We have re-signed with AEW. If you think...Vince has officially been back in charge since right before WrestleMania? If you think that we put pen to paper as soon as that happened and Tony (Khan) made all the adjustments as soon as that happened. I don't know if you understand how business or contracts work. If you think we went into the building Wednesday night with no contract signed and said, 'we're not going to sign unless you give us these belts.' You're so short-sighted. I said on the podcast months ago, we knew what we wanted to do and everything was getting fine tuned. We knew way before Vince came back in charge what was going to happen. Yes, we have re-signed with AEW."
Harwood then unpacked the differences in working for McMahon and Khan. He stated that under Vince, WWE "minions" are conditioned to believe that everyone is a replaceable object. Khan, meanwhile, treats Harwood like a human being:-
"I felt that, working for Vince, I was just a number. Vince has taught his minions underneath him into thinking everyone is replaceable and everyone is just an object and he places these objects where he wants to. We're not. Maybe in wrestling we are objects, but wrestling should be just a percentage, a small percentage, of what your life is. For better or worse, that's how Vince runs his business. I was just a number, just an object to Vince. To Tony, I am a human being. He cares about me, my feelings, my family. Working for someone like that, obviously, is going to make our decision much easier when comparing and contrasting to a person who just has us as a number."
FTR embarked on a hiatus from AEW television in December 2022, losing a grudge match to The Gunns. It was later revealed that their contracts were due to expire in April, prompting months of speculation on their status, with a potential WWE return heavily rumoured.
Wheeler and Harwood returned to AEW to feud with Austin and Colten Gunn at last month's Revolution 2023 pay-per-view. This led to last week's Dynamite, where FTR defeated the Gunns in a bout stipulating that if Dax and Cash lost, they would leave AEW outright.
In defeating The Gunns, FTR also became two-time AEW World Tag Team Champions, grabbing the belts for the first time since their 63-day run in 2020.