AEW stars Santana and Ortiz from the Inner Circle recently spoke with Web Is Jericho about all things pro-wrestling, including their thoughts on their feud with FTR, and how the two teams were originally set to face each other multiple times for the promotion. Highlights are below.
How they were originally supposed to have a series of matches with FTR in AEW:
Santana: Tully was supposed to get involved, and then Jericho. It was gonna be something where a bunch of people got involved in the finish, and they were gonna score a quick one on us. But we know what happened. It sucked. At that point, the match was going so good, and we were hitting such a good pace. We were feeling the chemistry, and both sides were hyped to finally be doing this match, then that happens. It was a scary moment. At first, I didn’t know what happened. I came to the realization when I rolled out of the ring, and I saw a big puddle of blood. I was just like, ‘Oh no. Something’s really wrong.’
Ortiz: We were originally supposed to have three matches with them. That was the idea. But, that first match, we purposely were like, ‘We know we’re gonna have three. Let’s hold back a little. Let’s chill. We’re gonna turn it up towards the back end.’ Right before Cash got injured, we planned to turn the match up, all this craziness was gonna happen, and then they pull a quick one on us. Which leaves the second match and the third match open to other possibilities. But when that injury happened, it was like a ‘dang’ moment. When someone gets hurt in the ring, it’s like, ‘Oh s*it!’ Testament to Dax (Harwood) and how good he is as a worker. He’s so underrated. It’s insane how he was able to, in the moment, pull it together. It was very quick, and we had to get to it. At that point in the match it was almost like, ‘Screw the match. We don’t know how bad Cash was hurt. Let’s get it over with.’ Dax and Cash are really close, and I could see Dax was a little worried. But his instinct kicked in. Luckily we got to do it again, but I can’t wait to work with them again. They’re some of our favorite people to wrestle. I don’t feel that we’ve unlocked the full potential of that feud yet. We were so giddy to wrestle them and excited, because we know by wrestling guys that good, we’re only gonna get better. I want to work with them again. I wish we could work with them every night for a year, because we would come out as badass mofos!
On the range of AEW’s tag division and how they hope to wrestle more:
Santana: The range of experience on the roster. There’s guys that just got put together as tag teams that are learning the craft and the art of tag team wrestling. Then there’s guys like us, who have been a tag team forever and have traveled that way. That’s one of the big advantages the division has as a whole is the wide range of experience.
Ortiz: It’s a double-edged sword, our tag division, because there’s so many good tag teams that are just starting or ones that have all the experience in the world, but there’s only so much time to showcase them. I would love to wrestle every tag team on the roster. I think that’s the upside and the downside of not having house shows. If we had house shows, we would get in matches with these guys on random house shows. But the upside is our bodies get to rest more, and we’re not as beat up. I just wish we could wrestle more. I’m a big kid in a man’s body, and I just want to wrestle more. I want the experience. If they’re a newer tag team, we get to lead. If they’re a more experienced tag team, we get to follow or match them. It just keeps us sharp so we can keep doing what we’re doing.