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Mike Johnson: In AEW there's a stronger focus on tag team wrestling, especially the in-ring portion. You guys have been with AEW for a while - I was curious how you think you guys have evolved since coming to AEW and if you have hit the benchmarks of your own personal goals since exiting the other company.
Dax Harwood: I don't think we've evolved...well, yes, we've evolved, absolutely, but that's because we got the opportunity to evolve. We've always stayed true to what we believe in, to our work and the professional wrestling that we enjoy and love, and the seriousness and things like that, but I think the evolution comes from having the opportunity to evolve, to be able to speak, being given the mic for a minute, we have that opportunity now. Or going and having a tag team match for 20 minutes, we have the opportunity to evolve, and that's the biggest compliment that we can get as a talent is they trust us enough. As far as being satisfied, I put up a tweet that said I wasn't satisfied and absolutely not, if I was satisfied I'd quit professional wrestling and sit home with my family. I'm absolutely not satisfied with where my career is right now. At the end of the day, when me and Cash decide to hang the boots up and who knows, that could be in 6 months or in 6 years, but whenever we decide that, then come back and ask me if I'm satisfied. We have absolutely not checked off all the boxes that we want to in AEW or professional wrestling. Right off the bat, I want a rematch with the Young Bucks. I think we have a lot to prove and I think that they and ourselves, but I think they owe it to the fans to give a rematch to show who is the best tag team of this generation, that's what I want. Again, the AEW World Championships obviously is the goal for every single tag team, and we had a small little run with that, but I want a run where I can prove and Cash can prove that there is no other tag team that can match up with us in the ring, on the mic with the ratings as well, so absolutely I'm not satisfied. Am I happy in AEW and what we've accomplished? For sure, 100%. Am I satisfied? I won't be until the day I retire.
Cash Wheeler: Yeah, I think we've gotten an opportunity to evolve because we're put in these programs that are with guys like Jericho, Punk, Mox, Sting, Darby, and we're given 30 minutes to go out there and have these matches, where we can tell these main event stories and have these longer TV matches that get to showcase a wide array of what you can do and what you're capable of instead of trying to stay within this box of, "OK you got 8 minutes, 2 for the entrances, we need a commercial break and then we got this, we kinda gotta keep it short and quick." Now it's like, "OK, you guys have 20 minutes, go out there and you're out there with these guys," and it's opportunities like that where I think we get to show what we have always said, that we can hang with the best of them, we are the best, we can go out there with any of the top guys, any of the names and we can go out there and have a 30 minute classic with them and that's because we are the best tag team of our generation and we're evolving now because we are becoming that tag team that does that, and it's not often you see a tag team that gets to that level but it's not often that you see a tag team like FTR.
Mike Johnson: Cash, I got a question for you - we just hit the 3 year anniversary of the incident in Brooklyn where Bret Hart and Nattie Neidhart got tackled by someone hopping the rail. You may have been caught on camera assisting that night. I was curious if you ever had any conversations with Bret after the fact and what his reaction was to that little backfist?
Cash Wheeler: So I'll just preface this by saying if it was me and...
Mike Johnson: Theoretically, yes.
Cash Wheeler: I will say, it wasn't just for retaliation, so it was kind of a, we should probably do something more than wait and see what happens here because the guy, he was out there, he wasn't with everybody else, but whatever happened that night, I will say that TJ Wilson, Tyson Kidd, sent me a text to come down to the hotel bar, not long after to come hang out and just ,you know, Bret happened to be there, no big deal, but yeah we talked that night, we hung out a little bit, and we talked a little bit and then that's the end of it. Who knows who did what, that's all I'll say.
Mike Johnson: The world will never know. Dax, we're just about 7 days removed from that match you had with CM Punk on Dynamite, that was something. I wanted to know, as someone who works so hard, I wanted to get your thoughts and your level of satisfaction personally with the match, your thoughts on the response that immediately just was all over the place in social media and just in general from the audience.
Dax Harwood: I said it in a tweet as well just the other day, I take wrestling way too seriously that's because it is my livelihood and it is how I feed my family and it has saved my life many times over and that's a shoot, that's for real, but ultimately, you know, I want to get back to professional wrestling and as a tag team, Cash and myself have done that time and time again and I guess that's a little pat on the back to us but Wednesday night was something. I don't like giving the magic away too much, but Wednesday night was something I was extremely proud of for a lot of different reasons, and the match, man, just talking about it gets me a little emotional because how much it meant to me, I wanted to impress Bret you know obviously, huge Bret Hart fan, and I wanted him to say that this is the kind of wrestling that I look forward to,this is the kind of wrestling that I wanted to put out, but I also wanted fans today to say holy sh*t - that was a completely different kind of match than I'm used to, I actually kind of like it, and on top of that, I wanted the boys and girls in the back to watch the match and say, "Oh man, this is a different approach to what I thought I knew and I'll maybe we can employ some of those tactics in our matches as well". I just know that the match sentimentally meant a lot to me. When I got to the back one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, future Hall of Famer, came up to me and said, "You are the perfect professional wrestler," and he said, "I've never said this before in my career but that was the perfect professional wrestling match," and that's all the validation I needed. Oh, and Bret Hart texted me before the match and said, "I cannot wait to watch this match tonight," so that was pretty damn cool too
Cash Wheeler: I wanted to say the match was incredible and I hope that not just aspiring wrestlers but anybody in wrestling that wants to get better and still wants to learn, I hope they go and watch that match because it's that good. William Regal gave a piece of advice to somebody the other day, he said, "The best wrestling matches are when the two wrestlers or the four wrestlers are trying to outsell the other." You go back and watch and both guys sold their a**es off that whole match, and made everything mean something. Even the superplex, they built to that for over 2 minutes instead of doing 13 things off the top rope and getting up from all of them to move on to the next. They tried to outsell each other and the match was better because of it and that's why I think people should go back and watch and understand that it's not just about getting your sh*t in, and I'll end it on that.
Mike Johnson: All right well before we go, ROH Supercard of Honor is going to take place this Friday evening from Dallas, Texas. Final thoughts on Briscoes and final thoughts on why fans should make sure that they're ordering this Pay-Per-View, which is taking place obviously in the midst of one of the busiest weeks of the year, if not the busiest week of the year for people who love professional wrestling.
Cash Wheeler: I'll just say that this match, this weekend, is very important to Dax and I, not just professionally but personally like you said. we take it very seriously, we take ourselves too seriously and that's fine because this isn't a hobby for us, this is how we make our living, this is what we owe everything to. So these matches right here, these are the ones that are special to us in our career, like we said, we're not satisfied yet, we've done some really cool things, we've got a lot to be proud of but I'm never going to be satisfied until I'm done, and then maybe I'll look back like you said and say, "Yeah, now I'm satisfied," but right now I have way too much to prove and I have way too many things on our list still that I want to accomplish, adn Friday night is one of those things, and actually, maybe it's two birds with one stone because working with the Briscoe Brothers is a dream for us just because we want to work with the best tag teams, bar none. We've never wanted to dodge the best so we could, you know, Young Buck our way to the top of the list, we want to work with the best and we want people to be so fed up with us because we work so hard and they can't keep up and they're so annoyed at the way that we talk about how good we are that they wanna do something about it. We also have a chance Friday night to add the ROH Titles to our legacy, so yeah we get to work with a team we've always looked forward to working with, because they are good, they're really good, they're great but they're never going to be on our level and that's something that we have to show the world, and to prove to ourselves because we're some arrogant ***holes and we need that. And then to say that we won the tag titles that we won that nobody else has ever done that, that's history once again and that's something that we can't help but love and make history. And Mike, I'm going to put ego and arrogance to the side, and I'm going to speak specifically from the heart, there are very, very few opportunities especially now in this stage in the wrestling world, where you have a dream match, an absolute dream match and I'll say it again, arrogance is out the window, so I'm saying it from the heart, you have two of the greatest tag teams of all time, two of the most decorated tag teams of all time, you've got this one opportunity, to watch this match happen for the first time, the only opportunity you can watch this match for the first time ever, the Briscoes vs FTR, Dem Boys vs Top Guys. I think it's going to be a match that 1 - you're not used to seeing in professional wrestling nowadays but 2 - you're not going to see for a long time to come cause again, those guys are good enough guys, they're nice enough guys, and I respect them as human beings, and I respect them as professional wrestlers, but as far as professional wrestlers go, you can't come into my business and tell me you're the greatest tag team of all time as long as me and Cash are still breathing and have blood coursing through our veins. It really does bother me a little bit and gets me a little perturbed because that's putting me second place as the very best and I don't like being second place. So in Dallas, at the Supercard of Honor, me and Cash's debut for Ring of Honor for the ROH Tag Team Championships, will add to our legacy as the greatest tag team to ever walk the face of the earth, and I'm not dismissing the Midnight Express, Rock and Roll or LOD or Tully and Arn, I'm just saying there's not a tag team that can do and has done the things that we've done and that's the Briscoes as well. Friday's going to be a fight, man, it's going to be a hell of a fight, and you as professional wrestling fans, again, last time I'll say it, ego is out the door - you as professional wrestling fans get an opportunity to watch a match happen for the first time of two of the greatest of their generation, two of the greatest of their division, go at it and I don't think we're going to disappoint.
Mike Johnson: I don't know what more needs to be said except you can follow our guests on Twitter if you so choose @DaxFTR for Dax Harwood and of course @CashWheelerFTR for obviously Cash Wheeler. Gentlemen, I know you are in for a long night at the office on Friday but this is what you signed up for and this is what wrestlers like you look forward to doing, so I think I speak for everybody who's going to be watching Supercard of Honor when I say we are insanely waiting for this moment and we expect something really spectacular and I think so do you, I think so do Jay and Mark Briscoe and we're looking forward to the match and I thank each of you for your time today because I know you got a lot of things to do before you head to Dallas and we appreciate you sitting down with us and we wish you and your families nothing but the best in life and in the ring.
Dax Harwood: Thank you, Mike. This Friday night will be the 1990 Chicago Bulls vs Detroit Pistons with Isaiah Thomas at the helm and Michael Jordan leading the Bulls, it's going to be a hell of a fight.
Cash Wheeler: Yeah I'm going to go ahead and give a disclaimer - anybody that's expecting to see any Canadian Destroyers, anything like that, please don't even bother, but if you wanna see the best wrestling match that you're going to see all weekend, feel free to buy tickets or the pay per view, and I would also like to say that Top Guys out, holla at your boys.
ROH Supercard of Honor airs on PPV, FITE.TV, and more this Friday.
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