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AEW Star Admits Lying Over Injury & Says Tony Khan Didn’t Know

By Lyle Kilbane • Published 11th June 2024
Tony Khan AEW

One AEW star is set to miss an indefinite time away from the ring as they come clean about lying over their condition in recent months.

Dax Harwood has admitted he’s been suffering since FTR’s AEW Tag Team Title match with The Young Bucks at Dynasty in April after he drove Matthew Jackson through a ladder.

Since then, Harwood has competed in six matches including the wild Anarchy In The Arena bout at Double Or Nothing that saw The Elite defeat FTR, Bryan Danielson, and Darby Allin despite Jack Perry being set on fire during the match.

Dax Harwood Set For AEW Hiatus

Taking to social media, Dax Harwood posted a video where he explained exactly why he and Cash Wheeler are going to be missing for the next while and apologised to those in the company for lying over the past few months about his condition:

Sometimes social media can be a harsh place and I know there’s a lot of people in the Twitter world that don’t really care for me too much but I thought this would be the best way I could talk to the fans of AEW and the fans of FTR and finally get this off my chest.

First of all, before I go any further, I want to apologise to my boss, I want to apologise to the front staff in AEW, I want to apologise to probably more than anything, I wanna apologise to the medical staff too because I should have been upfront, I should have been truthful about some things that have been going on with me over the last couple of months. And I didn’t because I thought I could tough it out.

At the Dynasty pay-per-view in the ladder match with The Young Bucks for the AEW World Tag Team Championship, I gave Matt Jackson a piledriver through a ladder. When I landed, it messed my lower back up really, really bad and caused a severe hematoma that appeared on my lower back and as we know that’s where the brunt of the bumps go for a professional wrestler.

I thought I could tough through it, I felt FTR was on a momentum high there and I wanted to not take myself and Cash off the road. After this match with the Blackpool Combat Club, 20-minute draw, one of my favourite matches I’ve had in AEW I got to the back, put some ice on my lower back and the hematoma blew up to the size of a football. At the very least, the size of a football.

With that and with the pain, the pain I’ve debated on whether to say this because I don’t want anyone thinking I’m trying to get sympathy but the pain has been at the very, very minimum excruciating over the last few months. I haven’t wanted to tell anybody because I didn’t want FTR taken off television or the road. Maybe selfishly and egotistically I felt that we were an important part to AEW, Dynamite and more importantly, Collision which has been our home for the last year.

But today I had to get an x-ray on my lower back and pelvis, they had to take a look at this hematoma and when I finally explained this Saturday to Doc Sampson and the whole medical team who are incredible and their only objective is to take care of this talent. When I explained to them what I’d been hiding these past two months, Doc Sampson immediately took me off the road. He said you’ve got to rest it up and if you don’t it could get worse and lead to possible retirement and obviously, I don’t want that.

Going forward, I gotta be truthful with you guys, truthful with my bosses, truthful with the medical staff and I don’t know how long this is gonna last, I don’t know how long we’re gonna have to be off but unfortunately myself and Cash will not be on television for a while. I have to rest this thing up. The sleepless nights have been catching up with me because I can’t get in a comfortable position even in my bed so you gotta think if I can’t get comfortable in my bed, imagine the plane rides or the top rope superplexes, all the stupid sh*t that I do at almost 40 years old.

I hope you know all this is for the love of the game, the love of all you fans. Again I’m not sure how long will be back, I hope it’s sooner than later but I hope when we come back better than ever. My number one priority in the profession is the legacy of FTR and I never want that to go away.

Thank you guys for everything. Thank you to my work, my bosses, to everyone who didn’t give me any sh*t for lying to them and taking the steps needed that I wouldn’t take to take care of my body. Without them, I’m sure in the next couple of months, couple of years I’d be a crippled man and I can’t thank them enough. So Doc Sampson, the whole medical team, even my boss man Tony Khan who had no idea about this, I hope he’s ok with this, thank you guys for everything and I hope to see everybody soon. Top Guys out.

There has been no word as yet if Cash Wheeler is suffering from an injury or if the decision for him to be off TV is to keep FTR for a big return when Dax Harwood is at full fitness again.

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