AEW's FTR: "Creative Genius" Tony Khan Doesn't Get The Credit He Deserves

All Elite Wrestling tag team FTR have praised "creative genius" Tony Khan and the former AEW World Tag Team Champions don't think the 39-year-old gets the credit he deserves. 

Speaking about AEW's recent momentum with DAZN ahead of the Full Gear pay-per-view, Cash Wheeler began: "I think a lot of the talent if you asked them, will tell you they started feeling that during the pandemic because we had to run so many shows in Daily's Place, and that's challenging. You have to be creative, be different, switch things up, and keep things intriguing for the fans to keep them coming back because it's so different without having a full arena full of people screaming. We did a great job of having the most we could with the guidelines in place. But I think it made the company better, and it gave the company time to grow into itself, find its identity, and what works. 

"Once we got back to the live crowds, you can really see that take place because all the seeds were planted during the pandemic. You can tell the momentum was swelling. You can see the backstage atmosphere just had this positivity about it. So when we're back on the road, we're bursting at the seams to get out on the road. No offence to Jacksonville. They were beautiful. But there's just nothing like being on the road every week in front of a new crowd doing something new. I think that's when it really kind of spilled over is when we got back on the road. We have full arenas with crazy debuts and crazy match after crazy match. It’s been great."

Dax Harwood then added: "But also, I don't think I'm not kissing up to him. 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. 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 why's and how's. He's really great."

Harwood also doesn't believe the AEW President gets the credit he deserves from those outside of the company. 

"Oh, absolutely not," Dax The Axe continued. "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 favourite 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."

Wheeler then agreed, adding: "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 combatting. 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."

FTR faced The Lucha Brothers at Full Gear on November 13. The Top Guys ultimately came up short, though, after donning the Los Super Ranas masks went badly wrong.