At AEW Dynasty after losing the match against the Death Riders for the AEW Trios Championship, FTR turned their backs on Cope. A piledriver and concharito executed by Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler was the end of Rated FTR.
It has been a long time coming. I’ve been begging for FTR to turn heel for quite some time. Did you see just how invigorated they looked the moment they did it? The energy? Hell, the entertainment? Cash Wheeler jumping onto the gurney with the neckbrace on? I was howling. The promo they cut on Collision is the best promo they have cut in I don’t know how long. And this time it wasn’t having to leech off The Outrunners. I’ll get to that.
Authenticity in Question
Since day one in AEW, FTR has been begging to be accepted. They came from the WWE system but they believe they are more than that. They want to be looked at as a throwback to the territory days instead of being a WWE product. They hated that the Young Bucks got credit as the best tag team in pro wrestling. They hated that the Briscoes got credit as throwbacks they didn’t. They didn’t want to treat old school mechanics as a gimmick and they bristled at the accusation.
And there have been times that the All Elite Wrestling crowds have given them their flowers and their love. They’ve wrestled the best. They’ve had some of the best tag team matches in the promotions history. They have done a lot to get respect and respect earned they received.
But it’s not just in-ring respect they want. They cannot stand the fact they will always be outsiders to the core of AEW. They will never be loved like the Young Bucks are loved. They will never be appreciated like the Best Friends are appreciated. They had to watch the likes of Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay be accepted in ways they’ve never been able to quite get.
Soon after FTR first came in they had it right. They hooked up with MJF to form Pinnacle. But after Pinnacle ended, they tried to become babyfaces and accepted by the AEW audience not by attaching themselves to an AEW original but someone coming in from WWE trying to change AEW. From CM Punk to Adam Copeland, it’s the decision to associate with those guys that’s helped keep them from the core.
This rejection from the core is why FTR can never be trusted. Not just from those in the AEW core, but those they end up aligning with. When CM Punk got himself fired, FTR didn’t stand up for him. They hooked up with Adam Copeland and acted like nothing ever happened. Is Dax Harwood yapping about missing CM Punk on a podcast? Nope. They found their next ticket, and it was once again a former WWE star.
And this is why even when the fans love FTR, there’s always just something off about it. It’s never true. It’s never authentic. And FTR so quickly turning on the crowd in their explanation on Collision shows why. They are never comfortable with the AEW audience, knowing they will never get the love they want. Being the enemies, the adversaries, of AEW? That’s their true purpose. That’s their true authentic self.
Fix The Relevancy
During their promo on Collision, Dax said that, “Adam Copeland was begging for relevancy in 2025 at the expense of the absolutely best tag team in this world and we gave it to him.” It’s funny that, because it was FTR only a few months ago as a tag team using The Outrunners to repair their relevancy as a tag team in 2024. Back then I told The Outrunners not to trust FTR, that at some point they would turn on them.
In the end, FTR did something even worse. They used Outrunners for a couple cheap babyface pops and then left them to dry the moment Adam Copeland returned. They jumped from one hot act to another. In essence, they are the typical heels accusing the babyfaces of doing exactly what they are doing. They didn’t even need to turn on Outrunners. Leaving them without a resolution, any way to get over from the alliance, for the more popular “Rated FTR” act was more damage than they could have done in the ring. For Cope though? They needed to execute on that.
It isn’t entirely lies by FTR. Good heels mix the truth with their lies so the lies they tell become more believable. When Dax said they put their career on hold so Cope could chase his glory days they were not wrong. When Rated FTR came out at World’s End, it made all the sense in the world that the target wasn’t the AEW Men’s World Championship around Jon Moxley’s waist but the AEW Trios Championship held by Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, and PAC.
That first Dynamite of 2025 saw Claudio, Moxley, and Yuta lose to Rated FTR in a trios match in the main event. It was almost like they were immediately establishing themselves as number one contenders. They fought Learning Tree on Collision just a few nights later. At Collision: Maximum Carnage they fought in a 12 man tag match to beat the Death Riders and Learning Tree together. FTR even beat Death Riders in a Mid-South Street Fight in Huntsville, Alabama. Everything in January was building up to a trios match, not a singles match.
It wasn’t until Grand Slam: Australia that Cope faced Claudio and Mox not with FTR but with Jay White in a loss. That’s when things shifted from being about Rated FTR and became about just Rated R Cope.
Rated FTR would not team again until Dynasty. That means as a trios (not counting the 12 man), Rated FTR did not team between January 4, 2025 and April 6, 2025. Not really great justification for them getting the Trios Championship shot in April but at least they had the pedigree from wins back in January. That Trios Championship match should have happened at Grand Slam: Australia, or even Revolution. Instead, it took a backseat to Cope trying to beat Moxley, which he got two attempts and both of them were disappointing.
When Dax calls Cope too selfish like every wrestler in the same position? He isn’t wrong. But FTR agreed to play this role, as “his Edgeheads” as Dax referred. They got the big trios intro. They agreed to this as much as anyone, and they only have themselves to blame. Turning on Cope after losing the Trios Championship match might be their way to express their frustration, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are once again responsible for their own actions.
Cope and Captain Charisma
At first it shouldn’t make sense that FTR are feuding with Adam Copeland, as it doesn’t answer how they get back into tag team relevancy if they are feuding with a singles competitor.
Daniel Garcia getting involved may make one wonder if Cope ends up teaming with Garcia, who was the top challenger to Copeland when he was TNT Champion but got injured in his match with Malakai Black, keeping us from seeing that match. Garcia would win the TNT Championship later down the road but against Jack Perry and not Adam Copeland.
Garcia and Copeland could team but that’s not the team I expect, nor should anyone. When Adam Copeland tried to defeat Jon Moxley at Revolution, someone cashed in their stupid Instashot to enter the match. That’s of course Christian Cage.
So far, it doesn’t make much sense for Christian and Copeland to align, but Christian has had nothing but issues with his Patriarchy faction, especially since Killswitch disappeared due to injury. Nothing has gone as planned for Christian. Nothing has gone as planned for Cope either. It would only make sense that FTR’s attempt to annihilate Cope’s neck would awaken something in Christian Cage to eventually make him feel like it’s time to comeback together with Cope for one last run as a tag team.
The end goal needs to be for Christian Cage and Adam Copeland to have their tag team reunion and square off against FTR. It would be great if it was for the AEW World Tag Team Championship, but that’s currently held by the Hurt Syndicate. It’s hard to say if the Young Bucks are going to get involved with the tag team division again, though them and FTR both being heels means they probably stay away from each other. Probably a good thing.
A lengthy feud with Cope and Christian would be great for FTR, and even if it doesn’t involve the World Tag Team Championship, that program would be enough to put FTR right back in contention once it’s over. Maybe this time we’ll have a lot of good tag teams for them to work instead of the barren wasteland it currently is for credible contenders.
Either way, this should be the final note we need to hear to never trust FTR, and for FTR to stop trying to get us to trust them. Be the bad guys of AEW. Be the outsiders. It’s the role you were born to play.
