Backstage Reason For FTR Dropping AEW Tag Titles On Collision

This past Saturday, in the opening match on "AEW Collision," Ricky Starks and Big Bill did the unthinkable — defeated FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) for the AEW Tag Team Titles. Since their loss, there has been speculation that the former Tag Team Champions were leaving AEW, but Harwood was quick to squash those rumors. On the latest "Wrestling Observer Radio" episode, Bryan Alvarez revealed the real reason behind them dropping the titles in less than five minutes — Wheeler is dealing with an injury.

"Well, Cash is injured," said Alvarez. "That's the story. The story they told on television was it, it was at the pay-per-view [WrestleDream] when Aussie Open ran them together. They sold it like he'd injured his rib there."

It's unclear how long Wheeler will be out of action, but he wasn't the only one to have injured himself during the WrestleDream tag team match either — Aussie Open's Mark Davis broke his wrist during the match.

Before losing the titles on the October 7 episode of "Collision," FTR had held the titles since defeating The Gunns on the April 5 episode of "AEW Dynamite." They defended the titles against the likes of Adam Cole and AEW World Champion MJF, The Young Bucks, Bullet Club Gold's Jay White and Juice Robinson, and Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett. It was their second reign as the AEW Tag Team Champions. Their first reign was three years ago, lasting from September 2020 to November 2020.