FTR made history at AEW’s Forbidden Door on Sunday night, successfully defending their Ring of Honor World Tag Team Championships while simultaneously winning the IWGP Tag Team Championships for the first time in their careers. The champs looked to be out of the match early on when Dax Harwood suffered an apparent injury to his left shoulder. However, he was able to return late in the match with his shoulder heavily taped. The pair nailed Rocky Romero with a Big Rig to score the pin.
The win means the pair are the first team to win the Raw, SmackDown, NXT, ROH, AAA, AEW and IWGP Tag Team Championships as a duo. The two are also poised to become two-time AEW tag team champions thanks to their high rankings in the current AEW poll.
Big Rig by #FTR @DaxFTR and @CashWheelerFTR!!! Order #ForbiddenDoor right now on major providers, @BleacherReport, intl @FiteTV / @ppv_com!#AEWxNJPW pic.twitter.com/dGMU0eX00E
In an interview with ComicBook prior to winning the ROH tag titles, the pair talked about how their vision of tag team wrestling compares to that of AEW President Tony Khan. Harwood explained, “I’m not going to say yes to it definitely being the same. I mean, we have our vision of tag team wrestling [and it] is completely different than probably anybody else’s in the world. And it should be. I mean, it would be really boring if everybody’s vision was exactly the same. But I think that we are still a brand new company. I think Tony is signing up the greatest talent in the world, not because he wants to lose money. He’s signing the best talent in the world right now, because he wants the fans to enjoy a product that he’s putting on.
“That’s the only reason,” he continued. “That’s the reason we have the greatest tag teams in the world working for us right now. Because he wants the fans to enjoy professional wrestling. And that’s it. And to see people, not our fans, because our fans are very smart, but to see people complain about that online blows my mind. You’re complaining about this man hiring CM Punk, or Daniel Bryan, or John Moxley, or FTR, or Sting or whoever, and I’m not categorizing ourselves with them, but I’m saying you’re complaining because he’s giving you a freaking treat man. He’s given you something you’ve never had before. A talent roster that you’ve never seen, that’s completely loaded. And so I hope he continues to bring in tag teams. I hope we bring in every single tag team in the world. Because I promise you the more he brings them in, the more Cash and I will step up and show that we are the best. And I think we’ve proved that we are the best because we’re so much different than everybody else. Man, I’m getting fired up because of that.”