FTR vs. The Briscoes will be taking place at ROH Supercard of Honor this Friday night.
During a recent interview with Pwinsider, FTR revealed their reaction to Tony Khan purchasing Ring of Honor, what the future holds, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On the back-and-forth with Briscoes and finally getting the match Harwood:
Harwood: “I don’t know if you would call them promos. You know, it wasn’t any kind of promotional material from any team. I think that underneath it all both teams feel that they are the best in the world. That’s a great marketing tool but I don’t think it’s marketing. I think they think they’re the greatest team maybe of all time and of course, myself and Cash think we’re the greatest team of all time. But to finally have this match, it does mean a lot to us because we are the only tag team in professional wrestling right now that has wrestled the greatest teams of this era, and I’m talking about the New Day, Usos, DIY American Alpha all the way to SCU, Young Bucks, Hardy Boys and now to cap it off, it’s going to be the Briscoes. I don’t think there’s another tag team in the world that can say they’ve faced that caliber of talent and so, Supercard of Honor, I know that we have something to prove to the Briscoe Brothers and I’m sure they have something to prove to us but ultimately, both teams, all 4 men have something to prove to the audience, and that is we are the best – Cash and I are the best.”
Wheeler: “But playing off what he said, they weren’t promos, per se, we weren’t communicating with those guys beforehand, we don’t know what they’re going to say, they don’t know what we’re going to say, we don’t know when we’re going to respond even. For a while you know, we were just not going to. We would go go back and forth a little bit on Twitter, but I think part of the draw for this match, besides the obvious reasons of ,you know, the longevity that each team has had, especially the Briscoes and their history in ROH, but it’s just the unpredictability of this right here because…maybe I’m wrong here, but I have this feeling the fans hold each team in a certain regard and that’s part of the anticipation because they respect what the 4 of us can do, and they think that together we can make magic. I’m hoping they’re right but I think that’s made a lot of anticipation, like a little more amplified because no one knows if it’s going happen even, cause for the longest time, we weren’t sure. We were just hoping and we were trying. We were doing anything we could to kind of keep the idea out there alive, trying to keep this little flame, this little ember going. And up until the moment we were told it’s actually going to happen, even up until now I don’t think I fully believe it because it’s been so long…I won’t go in behind the scenes too much, but the yes’ and the no’s and the where’s and the when’s but all that has changed so many times, I didn’t think it was ever going to happen, we had to kind of resign ourselves to the fact that, not in the near future, so for it to be happening this Friday in Dallas, like on a card like SuperCard of Honor, I’m going to just say, holy sh*t.”
On their reaction to Tony Khan buying ROH:
Harwood: “We were very excited, both Cash and myself have wanted to work for Ring of Honor for a very long time and to be able to…I don’t want to say it’s the resurrection of ROH because I don’t know if it was ever a dead brand. They took a hiatus and there was always plans to bring it back, but under the leadership and guidance of someone who loves wrestling as much as Tony Khan does, I think it’s more than a positive for professional wrestling, for professional wrestling fans and ultimately it’s a positive for professional wrestlers because it gives them somewhere else to go to to hone their craft and to make a living as well. So we were super excited and to get the opportunity to compete our title collection, I guess, is just the icing on the cake for that because now as of Saturday morning, we may be able to call ourselves the only tag team of all time to hold the WWE NXT, the WWE Raw, the WWE Smackdown, AEW, AAA and ROH World Tag Team Championships. That puts us in a class of not many other tag teams so I’m super excited.”
Wheeler: “I don’t think I was super caught off guard by the fact that Tony bought it. I know like when you hear the news it’s shocking because has it ever happened before where one person owns two established known wrestling entities like that, that are going to be operational. I don’t know but I jokingly call him Tony Two Books because he’s got two promotions he’s going to be running but it makes perfect sense, why would he not? Especially with the library coming with it. As far as everything else, it’s a genius move. At first when you hear it, it kinda blows your mind but looking back at it, it makes sense that he would do something like that so you’re not completely caught off guard.”
On their evolution in AEW:
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.”
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.”
