AEW: FTR Must Hold all the Tag Team Gold by the end of 2022

AEW needs to put all the gold on FTR, or else it’ll be a huge missed opportunity.

You can say what you want about All Elite Wrestling, how it’s too much of a spot fest and hot-shot booking, especially when it comes to debuts and returns. Some wrestling fans just can’t stand the AEW product. However, AEW has no shortage of great tag teams and, quite frankly, the best tag team wrestling in the world.

The reigning AEW World Tag Team Champions, The Acclaimed, are running the pack as of right now, and they’ve gotten over rather easily since they turned babyface. The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega should be back from their suspensions rather soon. The Lucha Brothers have made sure that they’re always a threat as well. The duo of Keith Lee and “Swerve” Strickland is also very entertaining as well.

And while there are so many more great tag teams in the young upstart company, there’s one team that has never lost any stock or momentum since debuting in All Elite Wrestling. The team of Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood, with their team named “FTR”, have been on a roll since joining AEW in the pandemic in 2020. There’s been no team that’s been more consistently booked than FTR.

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They first claimed the AEW World Tag Team Championships against Kenny Omega and “Hangman” Adam Page at All Out 2020. And while their reign was only short-lived due to losing the titles at Full Gear 2020 to the Young Bucks, that very match was one of the best tag team matches during the pandemic era. It’s too bad that there was such a limited crowd on hand in Jacksonville to see that match thanks to Covid-19 running rampant.

FTR started to go on a belt-collecting hunt first by capturing the AAA World Tag Team Championships. Then they obtained the ROH World Tag Team Championships against the Briscoe Brothers in a classic five-star match. They completed a trifecta of championship victories by winning the IWGP Tag Team Titles in a massive three-way tag team match at Forbidden Door.

As time wore on, FTR started to gain popularity with the fans, thus turning into “babyfaces” organically in 2022. The “official” turn took place in a rematch against the Young Bucks in Boston, Massachusetts for the ROH World Tag Team Championships and I thought the rematch topped the first match. I”m slightly biased toward this match because I was in the building to see this match live, and the crowd was very much into it from start to finish.

With less than two months to go in the year, AEW needs to start thinking about putting the AEW World Tag Team titles on FTR. We must think about this one because it’s a tough call. The Acclaimed is on quite the run as Tag Team Champions right now. They have all the momentum and they’re probably the most charismatic team in the wrestling industry today.

However, the team of Max Caster and Anthony Bowens have long careers ahead of them and a loss to Dax and Cash isn’t the worst idea at all. I’m not totally sure if the Acclaimed will split up in different directions down the line, but there’s no doubt that it’s a solid unit for at least the next three years. Right now, it’s FTR’s time.

FTR can cap off a year where they can become not only the AEW World Tag Team Champions again for a second time, but snatch all four Tag Team Championships in a single calendar year. A year of that caliber in today’s professional wrestling is unheard of and unprecedented. It would go down as the year of FTR, the single best year for a professional wrestling tag team EVER.

There are a few more weeks before the end of the year. If I was putting on my fantasy booking thinking cap, here’s the way I would approach this:

The Acclaimed can wrap up their feud with Keith Lee and Strickland at this year’s Full Gear PPV. Have FTR wrestle The Kingdom in another five-star classic. Then have FTR versus The Acclaimed at the “Winter is Coming” Dynamite in Dallas, Texas, or the “New Year’s Smash” Dynamite Event in Broomfield, Colorado. Then have the big celebration planned for the first Dynamite show of 2023 in Seattle, Washington.

It’s going to be awfully tough to deny FTR after going all around the world for these AEW shows as well as shows for other companies and on the indie scene. Constantly putting on four-and-a-half-star matches on their worst night. I feel like that type of work should be rewarded to some of the best living legends in the tag team business today. The team is still ranked number one on the AEW Tag Team Rankings for a reason, so saving this moment for the end of the year would be a very good booking decision by Tony Khan and AEW.

Do you think FTR should win the AEW Tag Team gold before the year is out? And if not, why? Who else on this massive AEW roster makes sense? Let me know in the comments below!