FTR Reveal Why They Fired Tully Blanchard
FTR gave Tully Blanchard his marching orders in March
With FTR seemingly on the road to becoming babyfaces in AEW, their attitudes started to change when they fired manager Tully Blanchard in March 2022.
Since then Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler have enjoyed a successful run across the wrestling industry, most recently becoming ROH World Tag Team Champions at Supercard of Honor 2022. But as to why they relieved Tully of his duties, FTR explained it all on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast:
"It's like I said to Tony Schiavone, if you lose focus, you lose your job. We need someone that is going to make sure we're at the top. Since we lost the AEW World Tag Team Titles, that's the top, we're not there right now. When Tully came in, he was laser-focused and gave us this edge and these ideas and had this knowledge that was untapped and it got us over the hump. We won the AEW Tag Team Titles thanks to Tully. When we didn't immediately get that rematch and we weren't champions for over a year, he goes where the gold is. I don't think Dax and I were family. He's my brother, you don't have to be related to be family. If you're not part of the family and not looking out for the well-being of each other, it's about more than money. That's something we've always said, it's not about money, it's about legacy and the people you meet along the way. I never would have imagined the friendship that we have now and the things we have accomplished after all these years and I'm not going to risk that for anybody, no matter how much I look up to you and respect you. If you put that at risk, there is nowhere for you," said Cash.
Dax added, "Ultimately, our relationship personally and professionally ran its course with Tully. That's not to say that he's not a valuable asset, he's a huge asset to professional wrestling. I wish that younger talent, older talent as well, would step up and ask him questions and pick his brain. We did and we learned so much from him, but our relationship ran its course. It's time for us to move on. It's time for him to move on as well. We were stagnant, we were flatlining. I never want us to flatline. That's why we left WWE because we were flatlining. Tag team wrestling has flatlined there as well and we wanted to go up.”
Cash finished by saying. "It's no hard feelings, obviously, because if it was we would have given him his own spike piledriver and left him laying. We gave him the easy way out. That just shows you how much we respect Tully, even now that we're not officially working together."
Tully has since started a new faction in ROH, unveiling the first three members of Tully Blanchard Enterprises at the recent Supercard of Honor PPV.
H/T: Fightful