All it took was signing a contract but FTR is finally sitting on top of the AEW rankings chart.
All Elite Wrestling released the updated rankings chart on Wednesday, revealing FTR are the number one ranked team in the tag team division. Dax and Cash were previously unranked due to not being under contract but they were added on today’s chart after signing their official contracts last week.
In other rankings news, the men’s and women’s divisions largely go unchanged. MJF is on top of the men’s division for the third consecutive week, while the main move in the women’s division saw Abadon and Britt Baker swap spots.
AEW Men’s Ranking
AEW Champion: Jon Moxley
TNT Champion: Cody Rhodes
- MJF
- Lance Archer
- Brian Cage
- Brodie Lee
- Darby Allin
AEW Tag Team Ranking
Champion: Kenny Omega & Adam Page
- FTR
- Best Friends
- The Dark Order (Evil Uno and Stu Grayson)
- The Young Bucks
- Jurassic Express (Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy)
AEW Women’s Ranking
Champion: Hikaru Shida
- Nyla Rose
- Big Swole
- Penelope Ford
- Abadon
- Britt Baker
Read More: FTR Upset Over Rankings Snub, Warhorse Gets An Animated Tribute
FTR‘s Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard and while some fans could argue they play the ‘bad guy’ role the argument could easily be made for the opposite being true. Scripted television shows have been blurring the lines between good and bad for years, and professional wrestling is starting to embrace the “shades of grey” even more now. It used to be easy to determine who the babyface and heels were, but as Dax and Cash explained, that trope might not work as intended today and they’re more interested in the emotional investment of their work and letting the fans decide who is good or evil.
Dax: “I don’t know if I believe in ‘babyfaces and heels’. I don’t know. Before anybody is a babyface and before anybody is a heel—at least for myself and Cash—we’re men. We’re men and you’re either going to like us or you’re not going to like us and I think that attributes to your personality and your traits. You’ve got to build on those character traits. Ultimately I think getting emotionally invested is the way you make the most money, the way you draw the most fans, the most viewers. To have someone, one set of guys or one individual fighting another set of guys or an individual, and there’s a conflict of interest and the fans choose what side they believe in, what side they want to be on, I think that’s where we’re at in the world right now. I don’t think ‘great matches’ every week are the answer to pro wrestling and how to make money. There’s a conflict of interest and the fans are going to decide in their mind who is the good guy and who is the ‘bad guy.’”
Cash: “Yeah, I think it comes down to—it might not be babyfaces and heels, per se. It’s not that cut and dry anymore. Things do evolve and things have changed but there needs to be a protagonist and there needs to be an antagonist. There has to be something, anything for the fans to latch on to emotionally and really get invested. I used the analogy the other day during an interview that I don’t want fans to only do the ‘car crash pop’ in a match where they’re only reacting because it looks so brutal and it looks like we’re killing each other because we probably are. I want it to be the one where they’re at the edge of their seat and they can’t look away because they’re so enthralled with what’s going on and the story being told. They are that invested in it and in awe—that’s what I think makes wrestling special, when there’s that emotional attachment that takes everything to a whole new level.”
WATCH More: FTR Pick The Classic Matches That ‘Define’ Tag Team Wrestling, Recall Their Feud With American Alpha
