In 2020, wrestling fans were treated to a dream showdown between the Young Bucks and FTR, two of the best tag teams in the industry today. The match, which took place at Full Gear, saw the Bucks dethrone FTR to become AEW tag team champions for the first time.
Dax Harwood spoke about this matchup on the latest edition of his FTR podcast, where he shares some behind-the-scenes drama and details some of the ongoings of the matchup. Highlights are below.
Says his anxiety played into things, but he initially thought his feud with the Young Bucks was just a backdrop:
When I looked back on it, wrong or right, I’m not saying I’m right. I’m saying this is how anxiety works, this is how insecurity works, and a lot of these things I was fighting with. I’m not a perfect human being, I’m trying my best to be better. When I looked back on it and when I realized things weren’t going to go the way we had expected them to go and the way, maybe, we were told. I look back on the angle and I started thinking, I don’t know if this was purposeful, it probably wasn’t, but I was like, ‘Man, the Young Bucks and FTR was a backdrop, leading up, to Hangman Page and Young Bucks.’ After the match, where hopefully we could have gotten a little bit of focus when we were crawling up the stage, the commentators could have said, ‘they left their comfort zone and they tried to play the Young Bucks game and it didn’t work, now the Young Bucks have finally proven they are the best tag team in the world. What will FTR feel? How will they think?’ We got Omega and Page coming out and we were an afterthought. Thinking about it in 2023, if that’s what the company wanted, that’s okay. Thinking about in 2020 and 2021, I was bitter and upset about it because I felt that we were brought in, given a short title reign, and we were going to be forgotten about.
Doesn’t think the match was built up as the two best tag teams going at it:
It wasn’t built up to that, and it should have been. The story of the match told that, but the build up didn’t. I can confidently say that the four guys in the match didn’t feel the build up was done well either. With 2023 eyes, I look back and say, ‘If that’s what the company wanted to, that’s their prerogative,’ but me, with a completely different mindset and my brain freaking out on me, I was taking everything as the world was against me. I was kind of upset. Now, I look back, and say, ‘It was a Saturday.’
Says at the time he felt like things were promised to him that didn’t deliver:
I felt like we were a backdrop. I felt that everything we had been promised, when we came in, we were promised that the tag division was going to be built around these two teams, and I felt it wasn’t being built around us. I felt we were lied to and at the time we were being lied to. I think my relationship with Tony got even more strained, I felt the relationship with the Bucks completely deteriorated. I take the blame for that. I take the blame for it because I shouldn’t have taken wrestling so seriously. If Tony decided that he didn’t think we were in that league or we should’ve been presented in a certain way, it’s his company. Same thing with Vince (McMahon). I hold no ill will towards Vince or Tony (Khan). Tony is one of my closest buds now and I love him for what he’s done for me and my family. I should’ve looked back and said, ‘If Tony doesn’t look at us in this light, what can I do to prove him wrong?’ Instead, I had the same thought, but I was going to be combative and fight for it, and I shouldn’t have. It’s his company. If there were, if there are ill feelings between us and the Young Bucks, it was because we took it personally and we shouldn’t have taken it personally. I think they took how we felt personally, and they probably should have because we probably weren’t being the best team players at that point. I can speak for me, I wasn’t being the best team player because of all the shit I had going on in my brain.
Says the actual match went as planned, even if his expectations of the build-up didn’t:
Me thinking about the follow up is when things started to go south for me. There was no follow up. Why are we being presented this way and treated this way? Getting into my own head,” he said before revealing that he was going through a rough time mentally and had wonders about what would happen if he ended his life. He clarified he was not thinking of ending his life. We had a lot of meetings with Tony during this time period. From the time 2021 started to right after I had my anxiety attack and I started to get on the good side of that. We had a lot of talks with Tony. I remember telling him, ‘Tony, I want you to present us as 1A and 1B with the Young Bucks.’ He said, ‘You guys are 1A and 1B.’ I think he did think that. I think he thought that in the world of wrestling, the best tag teams in the world, we were 1A and 1B. I didn’t feel that we were being presented that way, but I think he did feel that way. I think he felt we were the two greatest tag teams in the world and he thought that was good enough. It probably was good enough and should’ve been good enough, but to me, it wasn’t.
Felt like he was too abrasive at the time:
Going into Tony’s office and instead of trying to find a middle ground to get a better positon on the card, I would go in there and say, ‘Tony, you’re shitting on us. You’re making us look bad. You’re not presenting us the way we feel we should be presented. You’re putting the Young Bucks here and us here.’ It was just me being too abrasive.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
The post Dax Harwood Looks Back On First Young Bucks Match At Full Gear 2020, How He Felt The Build-Up Didn’t Live Up To Expectations appeared first on Wrestling Headlines.
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