WWE has reportedly expressed preliminary interest in bringing FTR back, with Bodyslam reporting that Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler’s 2023 AEW contract extensions are approaching their option year, and that WWE’s interest has been communicated to FTR through mutual contacts.
Per the Bodyslam report, FTR signed four-year contract extensions with AEW in 2023 and are now approaching the option year on those deals. There is no immediate sign that the team will be exiting AEW, but their futures past the current option year window remain open. Sources close to FTR have noted the team believes their AEW work should position them among the company’s top-tier acts financially.
The WWE interest is described as preliminary rather than active negotiation. The communication has been informal, through mutual contacts rather than through direct WWE outreach.
The reported WWE interest lands at a particularly significant moment for the company’s tag team division. WWE has been working through a tag team division rebuild following the recent wave of releases that included The New Day, Motor City Machine Guns, the Wyatt Sicks, and other tag-team-adjacent wrestlers in the post-WrestleMania 42 cuts wave. Bryan Alvarez has separately reported that WWE’s actual focus for the tag team rebuild is on internal development (newly-made pairings like The Miz and Kit Wilson) and NXT call-ups rather than outside free agent signings.
FTR’s loss at Sunday’s AEW Double or Nothing to Cage and Cope in an I Quit Match ended their third reign as AEW World Tag Team Champions. The loss put the team in a more open creative position than they had been holding the gold, with the option year on their contract giving them a clearer exit window if a return to WWE became actively desirable.
Harwood and Wheeler previously had a complicated WWE history. They wrestled together as Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson of The Revival from 2014 to 2020, with two Raw Tag Team Championship reigns, one SmackDown Tag Team Championship reign, and two NXT Tag Team Championship reigns across their run. They asked to be released in early 2019 and were finally granted their release in April 2020. The departure was contentious, with Vince McMahon famously dismissing the team to their faces as “just professional wrestlers.”
FTR debuted for AEW in May 2020 and have been one of the company’s top tag teams ever since. They are three-time AEW World Tag Team Champions, three-time ROH World Tag Team Champions, AAA World Tag Team Champions, and IWGP Tag Team Champions across their AEW run.
With Vince McMahon no longer involved in WWE creative under TKO leadership and Triple H now running the creative side, the political-side obstacles to a return may have softened.
