AEW superstars Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood, better known as FTR, recently spoke with Dallas Morning News about a wide range of pro-wrestling-related topics. During the interview Wheeler weighed in on the company’s expanding roster, and how President Tony Khan now needs to keep signing people to establish his future stars. Wheeler also gives an update on his arm after suffering a gruesome laceration at last year’s Fight for the Fallen television special against Santana and Ortiz. Highlights from the interview are below.
How Tony Khan now has two roster to fill, and his approach to building stars:
He’s got two rosters now to fill, which you’ve got to keep in mind. He’s got to fill two full rosters. But, like Dax said, AEW is still in its infancy. When AEW started, they had to build from scratch. And you don’t know who’s going to work on TV, who’s not going to work on TV, who the fans will accept and who they won’t. So, you’ve got to just sign everybody and hope after a couple years you’ve kind of got a better read on everything – what’s established, what isn’t. You can’t plan for things that are completely unexpected. So, some of these names that became available to him, he never could have foresaw that coming. None of us could. So, when it was available, he would be a terrible businessman to not pursue that because it’s going to make his company better. And it’s going to make his talent better because now they have another brain to pick. He’s not signing schlubs. He’s signing people that can help. A lot of the talent we have right now, also, are very young talent. They don’t need to be exposed every week on TV to make those mistakes. They need some YouTube shows, they need some independent shows, they need some ROH shows that might not be on TBS in front of a million people or more. They need the exposure before they earn that right to be on AEW television.
How Khan is finally getting to where he needs to get with his roster:
Yeah, he’s got two rosters to fill out. He’s got some young talent he’s got to get seasoning on and grow. He’s got established talent that he’s finally getting where he needs. And it’s going to weed itself out over time. There’s going to be contracts that aren’t renewed. And that’s OK. He’s honoring the contracts still. They don’t need to be told anything other than, ‘We’re not renewing.’ We’re journeymen. We go from one place to the other if it doesn’t work out, but if you want it bad enough you’ll get another opportunity somewhere. You just have to go out and get it.
How his arm has recovered after suffering a gruesome laceration at last year’s Fight for the Fallen TV special:
It’s not too bad. It’s progressed. There’s still going to be some weirdness to it, some tingling and just a little bit of grip strength stuff still. But, all in all, it’s fine. I can tape it up and even without being 100%, we’re the best tag team on the planet. So, it’s not going to stop us.