It’s always a good thing to be wearing gold come WrestleMania season in the WWE, and that’s something The Revival finally have.

The Raw tag team champions made their debut on the main roster the night after WrestleMania 33 back in 2017, but due to some untimely injuries and a lack of focus on tag team wrestling on Raw, The Revival have only just made it to the top of the division.

7 The Revival finally got the Raw tag team titles in February

Towards the end of January, reports surfaced suggesting that Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson had asked for their release from the WWE and it looked like one of the best tandems in the company was heading for the exit.

Anyone familiar with their work in NXT will know that would have been a massive shame for all concerned, but the Top Guys have since managed to find a groove force their way onto TV.

talkSPORT had an exclusive chat with Wilder on Monday to discuss the rumours surrounding their desire to leave, WrestleMania plans, what they’ve pitched to WWE and what will keep them happy in the company.

The Revival had one of the best matches on the card at Fastlane as they retained their tag titles in a triple-threat tag match against Bobby Roode & Chad Gable and Aleister Black & Richochet. With many fans waxing lyrical about the match, Dawson stated how happy he was with it.

7 The Revival with tag gold in NXT

“I was very happy with how that turned out and it was a match that wasn’t announced until, I want to say, Monday night? So there wasn’t a whole lot of build behind it, there wasn’t a whole lot of story behind it, but all three teams are very happy with the outcome because the crowd was there with it, the crowd was reacting, the crowd was invested and that’s what you want,” Wilder said.

“And it’s a lot harder to get that when there isn’t a much of a story going into it. So for it to turn out as well as it did and go as well as it did – because triple-threats can be very tricky, especially tag teams because there’s six guys there, seven including the ref. That’s a lot of bodies in there, a lot of movement. That can become chaos real easy and I was very happy with how we worked and controlled ourselves.”

But what was the feedback like once they got back through the curtain?

“Yeah, there was a lot of positive feedback and all very happy with us. Very few things that they really critiqued and that’s not really things that involved tag team wrestling, just wrestling in general. But they were all really happy with it, very positive feedback and I think it’s a positive sign for tag team wrestling that we were not only on the main card, but the match was received really well and everybody was happy.”

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When you look at some of the classics The Revival had in NXT, it can be hard for fans to understand why that doesn’t automatically translate to the main roster. Is it a difference between how Triple H runs NXT to how Vince runs the main roster? Is it the format of the respective shows?

“Oh man, I wish I understood! There’s just so much that goes into the Raw side of it, the SmackDown side of it and NXT side. In NXT, you have a little bit more time to get things situated and to build stuff and get everything flowing in the right direction whereas Mondays and Tuesdays, everything is very hectic and can change in an instant. So it’s always kind of flowing and moving. I thought around that time period [NXT TakeOver: Orlando/WrestleMania 33] we were at our most popular and it worked out really well for us with the debut against New Day and everything. The fans were really good for it.

“I feel like the injuries back-to-back – one to me, one to Dawson – that obviously put a big bump in the road for us and took away a lot of the momentum, but at the same time, the crowds are a little bit different. NXT, for the most part, their crowds are a little more die-hard and a little more ‘in the know’ I guess? Whereas Monday’s and Tuesday’s, they reach out to a broader audience, a more casual audience. They still come out and have fun and enjoy it, but they don’t know as much about NXT or TakeOver: Orlando as they do about the Royal Rumble or WrestleMania. So it’s just getting those guys established and things going the right way.

7 Dash Wilder works over Luke Gallows on Raw

“Like right now, we’re doing a great job with getting Richochet and Aleister [Black] established and they look great, they look like stars. They’ve been presented well and I feel like we were in a similar situation but ours just happened to get derailed by the injuries.

“I broke my jaw after my second Monday night, so we’d only been on two weeks and I had to get it wired shut,” Wilder explained. “I missed two months, I came back and we immediately started something with The Hardy Boyz. We came out, beat them up after a match and had a good thing going towards SummerSlam. We were very excited about that because they were a team we had looked up to for a very long time.

“They’re just two North Carolina boys like we are and they kind of made us realise you can come from a small town in North Carolina and be successful, you don’t have to think it’s unrealistic. They inspired us more than I think they even know because they opened our eyes to the fact that we can get to WWE someday. So for us, that was going to be a dream match. We get to wrestle the Hardy Boyz at Summerslam… wooo, who would have thought that would be possible?!

“And then Dawson tore his bicep a month after I came back. So within three months, we had two pretty significant injuries and that really hurt. The first one, we were still around, we were still on TV. The second one was a little bit longer, more rehab for Dawson and that one hurt a lot because we were going to work The Hardyz at SummerSlam and get that opportunity the NXT guys are getting now and there’s nothing you can do about it – it’s out of your hands.”

AEW's rally 7 The Young Bucks in AEW

Just weeks after All Elite Wrestling formed and The Young Bucks – executive vice presidents for AEW – declared tag team wrestling will be a big focus for them, reports surface that The Revival had asked for their release from WWE and they trademarked #FTR, a move that could be interpreted as preparation for the independents.

When asked straight, Wilder flatly denies they asked for their release and went on to explain the truth behind those reports and the trademark.

“I won’t touch on it too much, but I will say there is a lot of non-truth to that,” Wilder started. “The trademark was just something that we wanted because we want merchandise and T-shirt ideas and we want to make sure no other company can use it, because it’s not just a thing we have been using, obviously [laughs]. Other people have been using it and we wanted to make sure if we were to print t-shirts or like we have it on our gear now, we have the legal rights to it. Now it’s something we have the intellectual property of. We can have it on anything we want, if there is any more merchandise there shouldn’t be any more issues with that.”

Getting back to the reports, Wilder admitted: “We do want more for the tag team division, 100 per cent. We do want more opportunities and we were very vocal about that. But, like I said, there were a lot of things that were reported that weren’t accurate.”

The Revival were clearly unhappy with their direction at the time, so what would it take to keep them happy in the WWE?

7 The Revival with Triple H in NXT

“For us, we want a healthy, competitive tag team division where all the tag teams get matches on TV and not just every now and then. They’ll be weeks where the tag team champions were off two out of three weeks in a row. It was [Bobby] Roode and [Chad] Gable that were off two out of three weeks and it’s hard for anybody to get invested in anybody like that. It’s hard for anybody to care or for anybody to have a reason to and I can’t blame them. If I only saw a champion every few weeks, I wouldn’t really invest myself as a fan as well as I see someone like Roman [Reigns], someone I see every week then that’s something I get behind because I see them every week, there’s a continuity there and there’s just always something going on.

“If I see somebody once and then I don’t see them again for a weeks I’m like ‘Oh, I forgot about that’. We just want to see the tag team division featured, prominently. Because we know what it can bring to the show, we know what it has to offer. Look at the three-way matches that The Dudleyz, The Hardyz and Edge and Christian had. I don’t think they actually ever main evented a pay-per-view, but they were the matches that everybody walked away talking about. There was a time when tag team wrestling was one of the hottest things on the show,” Wilder recalled.

“And then you look back even further: you had the Road Warriors, The Hart Foundation, The Rockers, Arn & Tully, Legion of Doom – ahh, so many tag teams that were so good! And they had time to go out there and have great matches, develop characters and they had time to do real storylines and have them unfold over time. Nothing felt rushed or forgotten about, everything had its place and that’s what we want. We don’t care if we’re the last tag team champions or we never win the tag titles again after this – as long as the division itself is getting opportunities. We have a lot of teams right now on Raw that I feel are very capable and very good and just need that opportunity to show that. As long as that’s happening, as long as there’s fair treatment and equal opportunities with the other matches and performers, then we’re happy and that’s what we want.”

7 Edge & Christian, The Hardy Boyz and The Dudley Boyz at the WWE Hall of Fame

During the fabled era Wilder recalls with The Hardyz, The Dudleyz and Edge and Christian, they were constantly working with top guys. You would often find The Dudleyz working babyfaces like The Rock and Chris Jericho in 2000-2001. Edge and Christian battled The Undertaker and Kane as well as teaming with Kurt Angle and The Hardyz worked directly opposite the Two Man Power Trip in 2001 – Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin.

That’s just a few examples. But, that doesn’t seem to happen much today in WWE. We asked Wilder if he thinks that’s something he wants to see more of.

“Without a doubt, I feel that way,” Wilder said eagerly. “It’s something we’ve actually been working on trying to make happen more often. We feel like there could be opportunities where myself and Dawson wrestle two other single stars like Finn Balor and, I don’t know… Seth Rollins, that would be great for us. If we could have a match with any two superstars that are in that light and are seen as main eventers, we could have some great matches with them. I would love to see that.

“Or if there was a six-man where we team up with Baron Corbin to take on The Shield – I would love to see them [WWE] mix it up a little bit more with guys from outside of our division so we’re not painted within ourselves, we’re not restricted to tag teams and we’re all throughout the show. I would 100 percent, without a doubt, love to have more of that,” Wilder said emphatically.

With regards to WrestleMania, The Revival only had their first match on the main card of a pay-per-view at Fastlane and with competition fierce for places on the main card of ‘Mania, they’ve got their work cut out to avoid the preshow.

7 The Revival’s in-ring work cannot be disputed

Wilder, 31, did reveal to us what they have been pitching to the WWE ahead of April 7 in New Jersey, New York.

“Personally this year – I don’t know it’s possible or within reach but we’re going to do everything in our power make it – would be a match with Roode and Gable, two-out-of-three falls, for the tag team titles,” Wilder revealed. I feel like those guys have so much to offer as a tag team and they’ve only scratched the surface – especially on TV – compared to what they can do. I know what each guy is capable of individually and what they’re capable of as a team because we’ve wrestled them on live events all across the world at this point. We’ve had 40-minute matches, two-out-of-three falls matches, straight-up matches and I can’t say enough how much more they have to offer to this division and how great both guys are – as much as I love that we’ve beaten them [laughs].

“I’d love to have a two-out-of-three falls match with them because the four of us will go out there, work harder than anybody else is going to work and we’ll give fans something to remember. That’s something we’re going to pitch for until the day is over. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, what’s going to go on but up until WrestleMania goes off the air we’ll be pitching that!