Backstage News On FTR Losing AEW Tag Team Titles
The AEW Tag Team Titles changed hands on Collision while fans are left to wonder what happened to FTR’s title reign.
Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler make up the FTR tag team that held the AEW Tag Team Championships since April of this year. On Saturday night’s episode of AEW Collision in Salt Lake City, FTR lost those titles to the team of Ricky Starks & Big Bill, who are not a full-time tag team, but they have been allies recently.
Big Bill dominated the action by beating up Wheeler outside the ring and giving Wheeler a Chokeslam through the commentary table. Wheeler had the left side of his ribs taped up.
After taking Wheeler out, Bill hit Harwood with three Chokeslams in a row after Starks told him to keep on doing it. Starks tagged in while Bill held Harwood and Starks ran the ropes leading to a Spear. Starks pinned Harwood to win the AEW Tag Team Titles.
It wasn’t just a title change, but a dominant title win in under five minutes. That’s very surprising considering FTR is known for having epic, lengthy tag team matches including an hour-long battle with Jay White & Juice Robinson back in July. It was a sudden end to FTR’s 185-day title reign.
FTR losing Tag Team Titles led to questions about their AEW status
Following FTR’s sudden title loss to Starks & Bill, Fightful Select reports that many people are wondering what this means for FTR. Those questions are also coming up since they are very close friends to CM Punk, who was fired by AEW in early September due to his backstage fight with Jack Perry. Also, AEW’s CEO Tony Khan went on television to say he felt his life was in danger due to some incident with Punk.
In terms of their contract, FTR re-signed with AEW earlier this year with Fightful reporting they are signed with AEW until 2027, so they have a long time to go in the company.
Originally, there were plans for FTR to face The Young Bucks again at Full Gear in November in Los Angeles, but that’s not going to happen now that they lost the titles.
Recently, Dax Harwood trademarked the “CMFTR” name that was used when CM Punk teamed with FTR in AEW. It is believed that FTR could use the name outside of AEW or in New Japan.
On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez spoke about how Cash Wheeler has a legitimate injury, likely to his ribs. Alvarez spoke about it more.
“Well, he is injured, that’s the story. The story they told on television was it was at the pay-per-view when Aussie Open ran them together, they sold it like he’d injured his rib there.”
It’s not currently known how long Wheeler may be out of action, but obviously, AEW likely was worried enough that they decided to book a title change on Collision to put Big Bill & Starks over in a big way.