The first episode of “FTR with Dax Harwood” is up on AdFreeShows.com. The show covers CM Punk and some of the misconceptions about him. Dax also touched on some of the locker room stories that have gotten out this past year.
Dax was asked if there were politics involved in WWE and/or AEW:
“The political game in WWE was not bad at all. The boys got along great. I think the girls got along great as well. There was no real political maneuvering there in WWE. I think the problems were between the office and the boys, and that’s what the problems were.”
“At AEW, I don’t think there’s a lot of politics either to be honest. The boys have a male locker room, and the people who share that male locker room, share a bond and share a kinship. Every single Wednesday, I think you could ask anybody, every single Wednesday, myself, or Cash, or myself and Cash, we bring a bottle of tequila and we have drinks with the guys just to make that camaraderie even stronger and to make the kinship even stronger. So I don’t think there’s any political games as far as that goes.”
“I think that when you’re in a position of power, obviously, even when you’re not in a position of power, you’re always going to look out for your best interest because no one else is going to look out for your interest the way you are. I feel like there’s that competition, and I’ll just say it, there’s that competition between us and The Young Bucks and I think it’s a healthy thing because that’s why our 2022 was so great because we didn’t know what we were gonna get. We didn’t know what opportunities were to come our way. But we knew, and we had made a promise at the end of 2021, that whatever we got, we were going to kill it and we were going to have fun doing it. Whenever you have competition, I guess some things could be misconstrued as political agendas, but more often than not, you just try to compete and be better than someone else.”
On the rumor that some AEW talent don’t want advice from the veterans backstage:
“I don’t want to say it’s a problem because I don’t really, honestly, I don’t think that the guys think, ‘Oh, I’m a big TV star. I don’t need to get any kind of affirmation from them.’ I think what it is, is the culture now, not just in AEW, but in the world. I think people don’t like to be told you’re wrong. I don’t think people like when other people are slightly abrasive to them and how they explain things. So if someone went up to Tony Blanchard and said, ‘Hey, did you watch my match?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘What do you think?’ ‘Well, I thought the match sucked.’ Tully would say that. Tully wouldn’t sugarcoat anything and so I think they’re afraid of that. I’ve been there where I’ve been intimidated to go up to Tully Blanchard, to go up to an Arn Anderson, who you know is an incredible human being. He’ll talk to anybody in a second. Jake The Snake Roberts, same thing. I was intimidated because these are the guys that I looked up to. I was afraid of going up to them and saying the wrong thing. I don’t know what goes through their head (the talent). If they think I’ve already made it, then they’re fu**ing wrong and they’re fu**ing stupid. But if they’re saying, Oh man, I don’t want to bother him or I’m afraid of him or I’m afraid of what he’ll say, I get that. I understand that. But there’s got to come a time where you come out of that shell, because if you don’t, you’re never going to get better.”
You can listen to the entire podcast at AdFreeShows.com.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit AdFreeShows.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
