FTR (professional wrestling)
FTR is an American professional wrestling tag team of Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood with Stokely as their manager. They are signed to All Elite Wrestling, where they are the current and record-tying three-time AEW World Tag Team Champions. Before coming to AEW, they were known for their tenure in WWE as The Revival, under the ring names Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson, respectively.
The team was created by Dusty Rhodes in 2014, then as The Mechanics, and later simply Dash and Dawson when they made their television debut on WWE NXT. The team adopted the name The Revival in 2016, referencing reviving the classic tag-team wrestling style of the 1980s, which has led to the two being compared favorably to the Brain Busters and The Midnight Express, particularly the Condrey/Eaton version, two of the top teams of all time. The team uses the phrase "No flips, just fists" to convey their more traditional, mat based in-ring style in contrast to the more high flying style of some contemporary teams.
They are the first team to have won WWE's Raw Tag Team Championship, SmackDown Tag Team Championship, and NXT Tag Team Championship, and are recognized by WWE as being the company's first-ever WWE Tag Team Triple Crown winners. After being released by WWE in April 2020, and signing with AEW the next month, they made their AEW debut on the May 27, 2020, episode of Dynamite, winning the AEW World Tag Team Championship the following September at AEW's All Out.
Upon arriving in AEW, the duo took the name of FTR, alternately using the letters to mean "Forever The Revival", "F*** The Rest", "Fear The Revolt", or "For The Revolution" as WWE had ownership rights to the name "The Revival". The initialism is also a reference to "Fuck the Revival", an inside joke and catch-phrase coined by Cody Rhodes on the YouTube series Being the Elite. It was later revealed that it stood for Fuck The Rest, as noted in their shirts and their theme music video. That year, Pro Wrestling Illustrated ranked them number one on their inaugural PWI Tag Team 50 list.
In 2022, due to AEW co-owner Tony Khan's purchase of Ring of Honor, and AEW's partnerships with New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Mexico's Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide, FTR would win the ROH World Tag Team Championship, NJPW's IWGP Tag Team Championship, and the AAA World Tag Team Championship - holding all three titles simultaneously for the bulk of the year. All totaled between WWE, AEW, ROH, AAA, and NJPW, FTR are nine-time world tag team champions, making them the only team to have held championships in all five promotions. They are also the only people to have jointly won the WWE 24/7 Championship.
History
WWE (2014–2020)
Origins and formation (2014–2015)
Wheeler and Harwood were longtime friends before being made into a team, and had wrestled together on the independent circuit. In 2012, Harwood was hired by WWE based in part on a match he previously had with Wheeler, and performed there under the name Scott Dawson, mostly in tag team matches on NXT and live shows. Wheeler had hoped to join WWE, with the two also hoping to form a tag team there. In 2014, Wheeler joined the WWE Performance Center, and on his very first day of promo training, performed a promo with Dawson; WWE producer Dusty Rhodes immediately became convinced that the two needed to become a team. According to a May 2020 interview of the duo, Rhodes was not only highly influential in both the creation and development of the team, but had "unwavering faith" in them even as some of the other coaches had doubts, and was their "biggest supporter and pushed for harder than anybody" until his passing in 2015.Wheeler and Harwood, who were both from North Carolina, acknowledged that their southern accents contributed to the lack of faith some coaches had for them at the Performance Center. They were notably told that they would not get to do many promos, although Rhodes, a fellow resident of North Carolina, insisted that they should.
In 2014, after returning from injury, Dawson teamed up with a debuting Wilder, with the two performing extensively at live events under the ring name The Mechanics. The duo resurfaced and picked up their first televised win on the July 29, 2015 episode of NXT, defeating Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady. At NXT TakeOver: Respect, The Mechanics were defeated in the semi-finals of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic by eventual winners Finn Bálor and Samoa Joe. In the following weeks, the team name was changed to "Dash and Dawson". On the October 28 episode of NXT, Dash and Dawson attacked Amore and Cassady before their match, completely laying out Amore while decimating Cass' knee, leaving him unable to compete.
NXT Tag Team Champions (2015–2017)
Due to an earlier non-title victory over the NXT Tag Team Champions, The Vaudevillains, Dash and Dawson earned a title match on the November 11 episode of NXT, and won the match to become the NXT Tag Team Champions for the first time. They made their first successful title defense two weeks later, defeating The Vaudevillians in a rematch. Afterwards, they successfully defended their titles against Amore and Cassady at NXT TakeOver: London. Beginning in February 2016, Dash and Dawson began performing under the team name The Revival.The Revival made their first appearance on WWE's main roster at Roadblock, successfully defending their championships against Amore and Cassady. On April 1 at NXT TakeOver: Dallas, The Revival lost the NXT Tag Team Championship to American Alpha, ending their reign at 142 days. On June 8 at NXT TakeOver: The End, The Revival regained the titles from American Alpha, thus becoming the first team to win the NXT Tag Team Championship twice. On the July 6 episode of NXT, The Revival defeated American Alpha in a two-out-of-three falls match to retain the titles. At NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II, they retained their titles over Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa. In a universally acclaimed rematch against Gargano and Ciampa at NXT TakeOver: Toronto, The Revival lost their tag team titles in a two-out-of-three falls match after scoring the first fall via pinfall, ending their second reign at 164 days. The match was later named "WWE Match of the Year" for 2016. At NXT TakeOver: Orlando, The Revival lost to The Authors of Pain in a triple threat elimination match for the NXT Tag Team Championship that also featured DIY, in what would be their last match in NXT.
Raw Tag Team Champions (2017–2019)
On the April 3 episode of Raw, The Revival made their main roster debut, defeating The New Day. The following week on Raw, they defeated The New Day once again. On April 14, Wilder subsequently suffered a fractured jaw during a live event, and was estimated to be out for eight weeks, putting the team on a temporary hiatus. On the July 10 episode of Raw, The Revival attacked The Hardy Boyz after their match against Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, and became embroiled in a three-way feud; however, shortly afterwards, Dawson suffered a ruptured bicep, putting him out of action for an estimated five months.The Revival returned again on the December 18 episode of Raw, defeating Heath Slater and Rhyno. At Raw 25, The Revival lost to Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, marking their first defeat on the main roster. On January 28, 2018 at the Royal Rumble pre-show, The Revival defeated Gallows and Anderson. On SummerSlam pre-show, The Revival lost to The B-Team in an attempt to become the Raw Tag Team Champions. At Survivor Series, they were part of Team Raw, but lost to Team SmackDown in the 10-on-10 Survivor Series tag team elimination match. The Revival were the final team eliminated in the match.
Following this they began a feud against Lucha House Party and suffered various losses in handicap matches labeled "Lucha House Rules". On the December 17 episode of Raw, The Revival defeated Lucha House Party, The B-Team and Authors of Pain in a fatal-4-way match, earning a shot at the Raw Tag Team Championship. Throughout the next two weeks, The Revival faced Bobby Roode and Chad Gable for the titles, but Dawson and Wilder were unsuccessful in winning the titles in controversial fashion each time. Shortly after, Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer reported that the duo asked for their release from their WWE contracts. This information was reported following their bout against Lucha House Party on the January 14, 2019 episode of Raw.
On the February 11 episode of Raw, The Revival finally defeated Roode and Gable for the titles, marking their first tag team championship win on the main roster. The following two weeks on Raw, The Revival were booked to lose to two different teams from NXT. This string of losses included against DIY and the team of Ricochet and Aleister Black. The team successfully defended their titles against Black and Ricochet and Roode and Gable at Fastlane, when Dawson pinned Gable. At WrestleMania 35, The Revival lost their titles to Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder, ending their reign at 55 days. The following night on Raw, The Revival fought Hawkins and Ryder in a rematch, but failed to regain the titles. At The Shield's Final Chapter, The Revival once again unsuccessfully fought Hawkins and Ryder for the tag team championship in a triple threat match also involving Aleister Black and Ricochet.
After being drafted to Raw in the Superstar Shake-up, The Usos began a rivalry with Dawson and Wilder where The Usos would repeatedly embarrass The Revival on numerous occasions. On the May 20 episode of Raw, The Revival defeated The Usos. At Super ShowDown, The Revival lost the rematch. On the following episode of Raw, The Revival defeated Hawkins and Ryder, and The Usos in a triple threat tag team match to win the Raw Tag Team Championships for a second time. The Revival defeated The Usos at Extreme Rules to retain the tag titles. On July 29 episode of Raw, they lost the titles to Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson in a triple threat match that also involved the Usos, ending their second reign at 49 days.
On the August 12, 2019 post-Summerslam episode of "Raw", during a scheduled tag team match where The Revival were facing Lucha House Party, the 24/7 champion R-Truth ran out from backstage, being chased by several wrestlers. The match was called off and The Revival performed a "Hart Attack" on Truth and simultaneously pinned him to become the first co-champions of the 24/7 Championship. However, in the same night, R-Truth pinned Dawson, with the help of Carmella, to regain the title.