Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler were reportedly pulled from appearing in the AEW Fight Forever video game which will hopefully be releasing this year.
After Fightful Select reported on FTR’s absence from the upcoming game stating they are “not slated to be a part of the first version of the AEW Fight Forever game as of this moment.” the two had reportedly made it to the “model phase” and “were originally set to be included in the game, but by Spring of 2022, had been removed.”
FTR spoke to Louis Dangoor of Give Me Sport in the wake of this report.
“For us, the only real issue is we were kind of blindsided by it. We found out, not how you would expect. When you find out something like that, something major like being taken out of a video game, your mind automatically assumes the worst. For us, it was like, ‘is this something we need to worry about? Should we read between the lines here. Were we not told for a reason? Now that we are aware and we are out, what is that reason? Is it something we should worry about?’ We got an answer, it made a lot of sense, a very logical answer. Okay, cool, as long as we don’t have to worry about it, non-issue. That’s what it was. We’ve known about it since May, June, I don’t know how long, but for months. The fact that it came out yesterday, no idea why. Don’t know exactly what happened yesterday, don’t know why it just now became a headline, but we’ve known about it for a while, we got answers on it a while ago and for us, it’s not even an issue or thought about,”
Cash Wheeler
Dax would go on to add his piece too:
“The headline (for this) can be, ‘FTR is not upset, FTR does not blame anyone for pulling us out of the game.’ We heard about this, I want to say March, it was before the Briscoes match (at ROH Supercard of Honor) and we heard about it a long time ago. I had someone message me, one of the journalists messaged me and said, ‘Is this true?’ I thought I did respond to him. The first thing I did is text Cash, obviously. ‘Have you heard about this?’ ‘No, let’s text Tony (Khan) and find out.’ We text Tony, we went through the right chain of commands. We text Tony, talked to him. Legal texted us, talked with them a bit, we got our answer, and it was a non-issue. We wanted to make sure we weren’t doing something wrong and if there was something we could do to correct that, let us know. Months later, this article comes out, I couldn’t believe it didn’t come out in March. It blindsided both of us. I don’t care to be in the video game. My worry is leaving a legacy, having fun with my best friend, and on top of all that, taking care of Maria [Wife] and Finley [Daughter].”
– Dax Harwood
In June of this year Fightful had reached out to Dax to discuss FTR not being included in the game but no official word was given until Sunday. Numerous individuals were displeased with the news of FTR being left out of AEW’s first ever video game release, majority of online discourse was pertaining to the duo’s status, however the team was asked if they enjoyed seeing people stand by FTR upon hearing the news of their potential exclusion.
“Yes and no. It’s awesome to know that people care about it that much, but to see the side that does and the side that doesn’t going back and forth and having all this unnecessary blame and talking really poorly about one side or really poorly about the other side when really it should be a non-issue. I love that they’re upset, as far as they care about us, but I really hate the toxic environment it creates between people fighting over it because it isn’t an issue and hasn’t been. It’s cool they care about us, but I hate that it has to come at the expense of people fighting too.”
Cash Wheeler
Dax would go on to talk about how he is embracing the love from fans since FTR turned babyface and his reasons why
“For me, it was very cool, and I’ll tell you this because I’ve told a lot of people this about us turning babyface. For so long in my life, before my wife, I didn’t feel loved, as corny as that sounds. I don’t think I knew exactly what the feeling of real love was because I never felt it. I had best friends and a great mom and dad, but my dad was a hard ass, he’s apologized since I’ve had my daughter, but he was a hard ass and never really showed me that love and affection. My mom was working all the time too so we never really got to connect. We were together but we never got to connect. I don’t think for so long that I knew what real love was. When we turned babyface, I got real love from the fans. That was the coolest thing to me. I’m embracing this babyface turn. I don’t care if that’s corny. To log on and see so many people upset that we had been pulled, it made me feel good. That’s love.”
Dax Harwood
Cash would go on to ask fans to stop fighting and to please not be upset about FTR being out of the game, stating that there will be a chance to use them anyway
“If it helps settle things, thank you for caring about us, but please don’t be upset for us. it’s not an issue and there will be a chance to use us anyway. Thank you, but please stop fighting.”
– Cash Wheeler
FTR has the trio of Jay Lethal, Alex Shelley, and Chris Sabin to look forward to, Wardlow will join the six star team to for their trios match at the upcoming AEW All Out pay per view.
H/T to Fightful for the transcription
