FTR sat down with Steve Muehlhausen of DAZN to talk about their AEW run. FTR was asked about working under Tony Khan, and they had nothing but praise for their boss.
“I don’t think he’ll watch this, so I don’t give a damn. But Tony does not get the credit he deserves right now for being, and it’s overused but creative genius,” Harwood said. “He loves professional wrestling. The best thing about this company is that he’s not afraid of that word. I think in a few years, people are going to look back and say ‘man, he really is smart’. He really knows what he’s doing, and he’s got a knack for telling stories and putting matches together and the whys and hows. He’s really great.”
Later FTR was asked if they felt if Khan was getting the credit he deserved for how he’s run AEW. Both Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler agreed that he wasn’t, and the FTR members pointed to fan tribalism as a potential reason.
“Oh, absolutely not,” Harwood said. “Right now, he’s a man worth eight or $9 billion, and the people are just regurgitating what they hear online from some of their favorite podcasters that he’s a quote-unquote money mark. Furthest from the truth. But he’s got to have money. Vince was a money mark if you think about it. He had to buy a company from his dad, and he had the money. It’s asinine even to think that. He’s a huge wrestling fan who was blessed to have the money that he has, and he’s trying to put on the best wrestling product in the world, I think. Obviously, I’m biased that he is putting on the best wrestling product we’ve had in a long time.”
“I agree,” Wheeler said. “I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves, but I think he will. The world just seems like it can be so cynical sometimes, and we talk about it all the time is like an echo chamber. It can be a cynical echo chamber and not all the time, sometimes. Some amazing things come from social media, but sometimes it can be a sounding board of negativity. I think right now, people are combating. Some people love it. Some people hate it, and they just want to clash.
“They want to attach to something so that a large majority of people that are vocal about it, I think, don’t even know the full details. They don’t look into it. Like you (looking at Harwood) said, they regurgitate information, or they just move the goalposts. They keep saying he can’t do something, and he does. Then it’s like, ‘Well, it’s only because but he can’t do this’. It’s gonna keep happening, and he’s gonna, as far as I am concerned, he’s gonna keep delivering, and the company is gonna be around for a long time succeeding. Then finally the respect will come.”
