Top WWE Star Texted Dax Harwood And Claudio Castagnoli After AEW Match

A top WWE star texted Dax Harwood and then-Ring of Honor World Champion Claudio Castagnoli after their world title match on "AEW Rampage" earlier this month, Harwood recently revealed.

On the latest episode of The Ringer's "MackMania" podcast, Harwood shared that a 13-time WWE world champion was among those blown away by their main event match on September 9 — a battle AEW commentator Jim Ross called Castagnoli's "toughest title defense" yet.

"I might get him in trouble, but whatever, but after my match with Claudio, Randy Orton texts me and Claudio, and could not stop talking about how great the match was, and selling, and what's missing in wrestling," Harwood says. "He said that match is what's missing."

"I love getting accolades," Harwood added. "I love the fans caring about us, and loving us, and ranking us high, but when my peers and people I look up to are the ones who give us the accolades, that's pretty cool."

Throughout the episode, Harwood and his FTR tag team partner Cash Wheeler were adamant about leaving their mark on professional wrestling. "At the end of the day, you're not going to convince me we're not the absolute best," Wheeler said, adding later that he and Harwood want to ultimately be "untouchable" as a tag team and leave behind an archive of matches the next generation of wrestlers might study. "We're just getting better with age," he said.

FTR are currently the Ring of Honor, IWGP, and AAA Team Champions, having previously held tag team gold in AEW and WWE. Castagnoli, meanwhile, just lost his ROH World title to Chris Jericho on this week's star-studded episode of "AEW Dynamite."