Wrestling / The Revival

Seven Star FTR: Cash Wheeler on the left, Dax Harwood on the right

FTR is a Professional Wrestling Tag Team composed by David Michael "Dax" Harwood and Daniel Marshall "Cash" Wheeler, currently signed to AEW and best known for performing in WWE from 2014 to 2020 as The Revival. Initially brought together in NXT under the ring names of Scott Dawson (Harwood) and Dash Wilder (Wheeler), they were known as The Mechanics at house shows, though that name was shelved when they got to TV and they were simply called Dash and Dawson, before they were given the Revival name in 2016. After departing WWE, they renamed themselves simply as "FTR", a originally derogatory acronym started by The Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes ("Fuck the Revival"). What it actually stands for varies ("Formerly the Revival", "Fear the Revival", "For the Rage", "Follow the Rules", "Forever the Revival", "Fear the Revolt", "Fear the Revelation", "F*ck the Rest").

Together, they're 2x NXT Tag Team Champions, 2x Raw Tag Team Champions, 1x SmackDown Tag Team Champions, 1x co-24/7 Champion, 2x AEW World Tag Team Champions, one-time AAA World Tag Team Champions, one-time ROH World Tag Team Champions and one-time IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions.

As usual, you can find more information about them on that other wiki, Cagematch and WrestlingData.

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No dopes, just tropes:

The Revival/FTR as a team

• The Ace: They've had immediate success and been champions everywhere they've been, becoming the first and only team to hold the all of WWE (Raw, SmackDown, NXT) and AEW's tag team championships, as well as simultaneously holding the AAA, RoH and IWGP Tag Team Championships.
• Appropriated Appellation: "FTR" started as a memetic way of deriding the Revival created by The Young Bucks (meaning "Fuck the Revival"). Come 2020, and The Revival adopted the FTR acronym for themselves (since the rights to "The Revival" belong to the WWE).
• Arch-Enemy: Enzo and Cass, American Alpha, DIY, Lucha House Party, The Usos, The New Day, Jurassic Express, Santana and Ortiz, Lucha Brothers, The Briscoe Brothers, The Gunns, Bullet Club Gold and most of all...The Young Bucks.
• Bait the Dog: They entered AEW as, surprisingly, faces, looking like their rivalry against the Young Bucks was going to be a friendly and professional one, even allying with them for a bit. Then a few weeks later they turned heel by assaulting The Rock 'n' Roll Express on "Tag Team Appreciation Night", piledriving the original Ricky Morton, and allying with Tully Blanchard in what looks like it could be the start of a new iteration of The Four Horsemen.
  • They also pretended to be friends to the increasingly-isolated and insecure Adam Page, presenting as a couple of good ol' southern boys who enjoy a cool beer, just like him. But they turned out to be just playing with his head, undermining his confidence and taking advantage of his insecurities to trick him into screwing The Young Bucks during a gauntlet match to determine the #1 contenders to the Tag Team Championships, then ruthlessly beating him and Omega for the belts.
• Book Ends: The "FTR" moniker was born from The Elite's "Fuck The Revival" Running Gag as a fun response to Young Bucks vs. Revival comparisons, with Dawson and Wilder even featuring their own rebuttal in a video with jackets reading "Forever The Revival" instead. They later used it as part of FTRKO, the unofficial name of a short-lived trio with Randy Orton during his feud with Kofi Kingston of The New Day over the WWE Championship. After leaving WWE they adapted the acronym with a tagline of "Fear The Revolt", causing many to believe The Revolt was their new name, including Chris Jericho when he hosted them on his Talk is Jericho podcast. This got them a "Cease and Desist" letter from an independent tag team which had been called The Revolt since 2015, who thought Harwood and Wheeler were stealing their brand: their attorney rebutted to state that their new name was in fact FTR itself, being used as an orphan acronym whose meaning changes depending on the situation. Finally, their first post-WWE wrestling appearance using FTR as their official name came with their debut in The Elite's promotion All Elite Wrestling, making a save for The Young Bucks.
• Boring, but Practical: It's not said this way, of course, but this seems to be the general ethos of FTR, who pointedly eschew flash and even technical window-dressing in favor of beating down opponents through brawling and grappling. Their mantra is "no flips - just fists."
• Beard of Evil
• Deep South: Both of them hail from North Carolina (Harwood is from Whiteville and Wheeler is from Old Fort), and Dax's Southern work ethic was heavily emphasized as a part of his gimmick as Scott Dawson, having been part of various redneck/Southern boy tag teams. After coming together with Dash Wilder, they formed a hard-working, dirt and grime, smash-mouth tag team originally called The Mechanics (hinting at a clear willingness to get down and dirty), which became The Revival, and they even got a Southern metal anthem called "Southern Proud" for a theme song. The Mechanic thing even stuck as Dawson's nickname.
• Early Instalment Weirdness: In AEW, their early theme music and associated imagery was inspired by their Southern Gothic roots, part of which they brought over from WWE. Around the end of 2021 they transitioned into a more Retraux 70's and 80's styling, with a new theme song that explicitly took cues from The Midnight Express' own theme.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite cheating profusely otherwise, they still show respect for the rules of tag team wrestling and call out Lucha House Party for using "Lucha House Rules" (which basically means that in every match they're in all three members participate in it, disregarding tags, effectively making them handicap matches). Upon arriving in AEW they even explicitly called out the Lucha Brothers for similarly disregarding tags during their matches. This is part of their "old-school heel" approach, appreciating the standard rules of wrestling so they can breach and exploit them.
• Finishing Move: Their best known one is a flapjack into facebreaker combo, which WWE called the "Shatter Machine". Upon their debut in AEW, they changed its name to the "Goodnight Express", and added the "Mind Breaker", a spike piledriver, to their arsenal. After the death of Brodie Lee, they renamed the "Goodnight Express" again to the "Big Rig" in honor of Brodie and his indie gimmick. Around late 2022-early 2023, it was renamed to the "Shatter Machine" once again.
• Genre Throwback: Their name and style are explicitly a send-up to the great tag team technicians of the 80s - particularly the Brainbusters (Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard). In fact, after their Face–Heel Turn in AEW they're now being managed by Tully Blanchard, who after FTR's victory over Private Party declared "Fear The Revelation"...
• Good Old Fisticuffs: They rely on simple, hard hitting techniques that contrasts sharply with the high flying skills of several of the tag teams out there.
• Heel–Face Turn: To the immense shock of everyone, FTR turned face in early 2022, despite being considered solidified as career heels. They shocked people even more when they proved themselves to be every bit as good at portraying faces as they were as heels.
• Initialism Title: FTR.
• Jerkass: Times two, as heels.
• Meaningful Name: The Revival are a Deep South throwback duo looking to revitalize the art of tag team wrestling. This brings to mind the concept of a spiritual revival of the Christian church, particularly touted in the Southern United States.
• Mythology Gag: Their first AEW entrance theme, "Old School Raised", references the "SAY YEAH!" hook of their WWE theme, "Southern Proud".
• Only in It for the Money: Stated in a Cathy Kelley interview that their wrestle only for the money to feed their family and not having fun.
• Power Stable: Defied at first, then played straight. Despite sharing a manager in Tully Blanchard, they denied having a working relationship with Shawn Spears and had not been seen with Spears in the same place... until MJF's plan to crush Chris Jericho's Inner Circle saw him and Wardlow join forces with all four of them, forming a new faction called The Pinnacle.
• Power Trio: Formed one briefly with Randy Orton, informally called FTRKO, when all three were feuding with The New Day over both the tag titles and Kofi Kingston's WWE Championship.
• Red Baron: "Seven Star FTR", referencing to their major title accomplishments. The titles refer to the NXT, Raw, SmackDown, AEW, AAA, ROH and IWGP Tag Team Championships. They adopted the "Five Star" name around when they won the AAA belt, and has expanded it since.
• The Rival: To The Young Bucks. Both have legitimate claims to being among the greatest tag teams of all time, but with completely contrasting wrestling styles and philosophies. FTR's retro "No Flips Only Fists" attitude vs. The Young Bucks completely embracing the gymnastic athleticism and pantomime of the sport.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Cash" may have been the name Wheeler originally wanted in WWE, but Harwood's choice of "Dax" alongside it is an intentional homage. One fan decided to name his cats "Dax and Cash", to which his wife, unaware at least of FTR's new ring names, thought he was trying to rhyme with Demolition's "Ax and Smash".
    @CashWheelerFTR: Your wife was the first to solve it.
  • In addition, the new name for their flapjack/facebreaker finish, The Good Night Express, is an obvious send-out to The Midnight Express.
  • Their logo, as shown on one of their AEW shirt, is clearly inspired by the Four Horsemen logo. Appropriate for two old-school heels managed by Tully Blanchard.
  • Their second AEW theme, "Dark Side of the Revival", references Dark Side of the Ring with its title, and musically it is a Suspiciously Similar Song of The Midnight Express' theme, which in turn was a copy of "Chase".invoked
• Tag Team: The best tag team on the planet.
• Technician Versus Performer: They are the technicians vs. pretty much everyone they feud against, though this is especially true regarding the dream feud with The Young Bucks that they had teased for years before finally being able to launch.
• Took a Level in Badass: After teaming up, the duo were mainly used as enhancement talent until they both took a huge leap in the mentioned trope and scored their first victory over the incredibly over Enzo and Cass.
  • They advanced to the semifinal round of the Dusty Rhodes tag team tournament, and although they were beaten by Finn Balor and Samoa Joe, they proved that they're here to stay in the tag division.
  • Their badass leveling was completed when they destroyed The Vaudevillains to win the NXT Tag Team Championship. They eventually became the first two-time champions in NXT, defeating American Alpha to get their tag titles back. In NXT they crafted a resume as expert heels in highly-acclaimed top notch matches against teams like American Alpha, Gargano & Ciampa, and TM-61.
• Worthy Opponent: Of all the teams listed under Arch-Enemy, The Briscoe Brothers are probably the ones they respect the most. Their trilogy of matches in 2022 saw the two teams beat seventy-three flavours of tar out of each other, but left both sides with a healthy respect for the toughness and determination of their counterparts when it was all over, with the Briscoes even coming back to save FTR from a post-match beatdown by the Gunn Club (who the Briscoes had previously tasked with delivering their invitation for the match to FTR).

Scott Dawson/Dax Harwood

• Bald of Evil
• Can't Catch Up: Straight up invokes this toward the new Performance Center prospects in a WWE web video posted in February 2017. He tells them their goal should be as good as him and it'll never happen, then explains in an interview on the side that he worked harder than any of 'em to get here and he'll continue to work harder than any of 'em. Meaning he will continue improving and outworking everyone, so no matter how hard the new prospects try they will never reach his level.
• House Husband: Harwood had to become the "man of the house" at a young age.
• Precision F-Strike: After winning the 2 out of 3 falls rematch against The Briscoe Brothers at Death Before Dishonor 2022 Dax began his part of the post match promo with one.
  Dax: Motherfucker I love professional wrestling!
• Red Baron: The Mechanic going by his gear, Captain Roughneck going by the fans.

Dash Wilder/Cash Wheeler

• Flaw Exploitation: His WWE.com bio states he had to do this in order to survive up in the mountains of his hometown. Shown extensively during points in certain matches, such as crawling underneath across the ring to stop a hot tag from the other side during The Revival's tag team title defense against American Alpha at TakeOver: Dallas.
• Red Baron: Powder Keg.

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