Back in December The Acclaimed and FTR met in a highly-anticipated tag team showdown, pitting two of AEW’s most popular tag teams against each other with the AEW tag titles on the line. On that night The Acclaimed bested the Top Guys in a critically acclaimed matchup, the first in what would become a losing streak for FTR.
FTR’s Dax Harwood discussed this matchup on the latest edition of his podcast. Check out what he had to say about it below.
On the match with The Acclaimed, and how over FTR was at the beginning of the year:
It would have been a cool moment. I hate giving away the magic, but I have to get with the times, I guess. That was Cash and I’s idea, the match with The Acclaimed. We wanted to have that match with them because I felt, whenever we were at our most popular in the summer, the opportunity was missed with us. I’ve expressed this to Tony (Khan) and we’ve had talks, and he has his reasons, and when he explained his reasons, they are good reasons. I felt like our opportunity was missed and there was a time where we could have went over the threshold and there was an opportunity to make us, not just the top babyface tag team, but maybe the top babyface act in the company. Right up there with (CM) Punk and Mox [Jon Moxley]. We should have, of course, I feel this way because we’re all egotistical in some way. I felt we should have been the team to topple one of the top heels in the company. That would have set us at the top and I felt we could have helped the company in that aspect, but it never happened. Cash and I wanted to do that for The Acclaimed. We wanted to give them an incredible wrestling match. It was two babyfaces, at the same time being polar opposites. One team is full of energy and full of life and oozing charisma and rapping to the ring. The other team has this guy here [himself], a 38-year-old balding mustache [laughs]. I wanted to give them a great match and we wanted to make sure they were looked as the top tag team in the company.
Why he and Cash thought it was right to put The Acclaimed over:
At that point in time, we didn’t want the tag belts. We felt, if we did get the tag belts, one, this team that had, just like us, gotten organically over, the people loved and cared about them, they may be upset with us. Two, not just because my bags were heavy, but I didn’t want to have four tag team belts walking around because I felt the people would think we’re getting pushed down their throats. I knew that if we lost in the right way, we could make them feel sorry for us and make them love us even more.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)