FTR Reveals Demeaning Comment Vince McMahon Made To Them

FTR are damn proud of their wrestling roots. From homages to the Midnight Express, to recently being managed by their own hero Bret "Hitman" Hart, "wrestler" is a term that Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler wear with pride. In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, the ROH World Tag Team Champions talked about how WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon turned that term into a slight against them.

Harwood mentioned a night, after wrestling for WWE, where the former-WWE Raw & Smackdown Tag Team Champions found Vince McMahon in his usual spot backstage. "He had his hands in his pockets, and he said to us, 'Everyone says you're the next great tag team. But you know what I see? The problem with you guys is you're just professional wrestlers.'"

McMahon has been famously uncomfortable with the terms like "professional wrestling" or "professional wrestler," opting instead to call what WWE presents as "Sports Entertainment" that is presented by "Superstars." Clearly designed to get under the skin of the tag team, and in some ways, he was successful, as Harwood says he was thinking of that moment as he stood in the ring alongside Wheeler and Bret Hart.

"That night in the ring," Harwood continued talking about having Bret Hart in FTR's corner recently at Big Time Wrestling. "I thought to myself, 'Damn right, I'm a professional wrestler. I'm a great professional wrestler, and look at where my life is right now.'"

Harwood and Wheeler wrestled as Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder in WWE respectively. Their tenure in both "WWE NXT" as well as WWE's main roster was met with critical acclaim from fans and from many inside wrestling. Fed up with their treatment in WWE, the duo requested their release in 2019 but were not granted the release until April of 2020.

The duo debuted in All Elite Wrestling in May of 2020, and have since gone on to win the AEW World Tag Team Championships, and are currently the World Tag Team Champions of both ROH and AAA.