Dax Harwood has had a long friendship with Mercedes Mone (Sasha Banks in WWE) dating back to their time together in WWE when The Shevival (Banks & Bayley) would often connect with FTR (Harwood & Cash Wheeler), who were known as The Revival in WWE.
Mercedes Mone walked out of WWE in May 2022 and made her debut for NJPW at Wrestle Kingdom 17.
Speaking on his FTR podcast with Matt Koon, Dax discussed Mone's love of the business.
"She did take the tag team titles very seriously, but she took wrestling very seriously too. She didn't get into wrestling just to get into wrestling. She got into wrestling to make a difference. Not just women's wrestling, but for all of wrestling. She wanted to be looked at in the same light as Stone Cold Steve Austin or Hulk Hogan or The Rock. She wanted to be looked at that way and she wanted to make a difference in wrestling that way. She's very prideful. Sometimes, speaking from experience, pride can rub people the wrong way because you do stand up for what you believe in and you don't take no for an answer because you want the best for yourself and you want the best for your craft and your art, as corny as 'art' sounds, that word is too cliche now, but when you take it so seriously, it's a recipe for success, but a lot of people aren't going to like you because of it. I think that's maybe what happened to her," he said.
After making her NJPW debut, Mercedes challenged KAIRI to a match for the IWGP Women's Title at NJPW Battle in the Valley.
FTR were part of NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 as well, losing the IWGP Tag Team Titles to Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSH-HASHI).
The full episode of FTR drops on Thursday, January 5 on all podcast platforms. Fans can check it out at FTR With Dax or on YouTube at Watch Dax.
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