AEW star recalls Randy Orton being "the most excited" he'd been in his career after working with him

WWE veteran Randy Orton has teamed up with a number of different partners during his 20 year run with the company, but it was his brief partnership with a current AEW star that made him very excited for the future.

The star in question is former AEW Tag Team Champion Dax Harwood, who along with his FTR teammate Cash Wheeler formed a short-lived partnership with the "Legend Killer" in 2019.

As The Revival, Dax and Cash joined Smackdown, where they immediately began a feud with The New Day. During that feud, they aligned themselves with Randy Orton to form a team known as FTRKO, despite Dax and Cash not officially being called FTR until they joined AEW the following year.

Dax had nothing but kind words to say about Randy Orton on the most recent edition of the "FTR with Dax" podcast. Harwood also revealed that Orton saw a bright future for the group and was very excited to see what they could do as a trio.

“I’m sure I met him a few times in WWE and said hello or whatever, but this is first time us actually conversing with him and talking to him and picking his brain and him picking our brain actually. Around this time was it, but there was never any plans for FTRKO, there were never any plans for it to be something, to be this. But I remember after it happened, Randy said ‘there’s something here,’ and then we did some house shows and he said ‘I can feel it like this is the most excited I’ve been in my career in a very long time and I want to keep it going.’” [36:39 - 37:27]

FTRKO only wrestled a handful of times in 2019, but due to Dax and Cash leaving WWE in 2020, the trio didn't gain any sort of momentum heading into the pandemic era of the company's history.

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When will Randy Orton be back in action?

The 14-time world champion hasn't been in action since losing the Raw Tag Team Championships to The Usos in May 2022, with many people hoping to see him back in the ring soon.

January is always an exciting time as the Royal Rumble offers an opportunity for lots of surprises, but could Randy Orton be one of them? According to reports, apparently not.

Orton had back surgery in 2022 that is scheduled to keep him out for the foreseeable future, with no timetable being put in place as to when he could possibly return.

There were also rumblings around the time Randy was taken off TV that he might have needed to retire had he continued to wrestle with the injuries that he was dealing with. Luckily for fans of the "Legend Killer," he is taking as much time as he needs to deal with his injuries.

Do you think Randy Orton will return to WWE in 2023? Let us know in the comments section down below!

Please credit "FTR with Dax" and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling when using quotes from this article.