Top AEW star confirms retirement plans; shares major update

A popular AEW star recently revealed that he has his retirement plans chalked out for the future. Dax Harwood disclosed that he intended to set up a wrestling school once he hung up his boots and added that the preparation for said school was already underway.

Harwood, alongside his long-time tag team partner, Cash Wheeler, is one of All Elite Wrestling's marquee stars. FTR are former two-time AEW Tag Team Champions and are among the most respected duos in the company. They were in action at AEW All In 2024, where they challenged The Young Bucks for the Tag Team Titles in a Three-Way Match, also featuring The Acclaimed.

In a Q&A session with fans on Instagram, Dax Harwood discussed the idea of retirement, revealing that he had some plans in place. The 40-year-old star explained that he was already in the process of opening a wrestling school with a few of his friends and intends to teach the future generation of talents.

“So, my plans after being done in the ring are already in motion. I don’t know how much I can tell ya. But I can tell ya that there’s already a ring, there’s already a building, there’s already equipment and the idea is to obviously open a wrestling school with three of my friends. I’ll just leave it at that and you know, hopefully that will allow people to live a 20-year dream just like I did," said Dax Harwood. [H/T: Ringside News]

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AEW star Dax Harwood on WWE's DIY using Shatter Machine

In the same session, Dax Harwood also spoke about DIY (Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa) using FTR's finisher Shatter Machine in WWE. The AEW star revealed that Ciampa texted him beforehand about using the maneuver and added that he got emotional seeing their former on-screen rivals pay a tribute to them.

"Thoughts on DIY using the Shatter Machine? Uh, I love it. I love those guys. I owe those guys a big part of my career and if I’m being honest, I was texting with Tommaso [Ciampa] before that and he let me know that they were going to use the Shatter Machine in their match to try to win the belts and I was very, very—I get really emotional, especially on the other side, the other team, WWE. When I see the move done and I hear it called Shatter Machine because you gotta understand man, it’s really hard to come up with something authentic or something new and I feel that we did that with the Shatter Machine."

FTR, then known as The Revival, and DIY had a series of legendary matches in 2016-2017 that kickstarted a tag team wrestling renaissance in WWE.