Dax Harwood Recalls Paul Heyman’s Bizarre “Carny” Antics

Dax Harwood has reflected on refusing to go to Raw while in WWE after a grueling tour and having to deal with some misdirection from Paul Heyman.

Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler’s time in WWE came to an end in April 2020, well over a year after it was reported that the team had asked to leave the company.

Before that, however, the current AEW stars had to deal with long-time WWE personality and the man responsible for booking Raw at the time, Paul Heyman.

Speaking on his FTR podcast, Dax Harwood recalled a story when he and his tag team partner Cash Wheeler had come off a long tour and were expecting to go home before WWE’s travel department told them differently:

“We were on this long tour, we had been gone for a very long time. I remember October we were home – between October and November, me and Cash were home for three days. The tour had been broken up, we had gone to China and Saudi Arabia and then Australia, and then we did the UK and Ireland. The tour had been broken up into two different tours and everyone had gotten to do half of a tour.”

“For example, half the roster did the first half and then they brought in a whole new roster to do the second half. Apart from a few guys like Roman [Reigns] who had just signed one of the new contracts, making a ton of money. I think Seth [Rollins] as well maybe. But other than that me and [Cash] were the only ones who were on the whole tour.”

“After the tour was finally over, I think we were set to go to NXT as well which was on a Wednesday, they wanted us to go to Raw – we had been drafted to SmackDown – they wanted us to go to Raw. We were called by WWE travel services to tell us that we were needed for Raw.”

“We lost it, we said absolutely not. We had been on the road at the time for 17 straight days and like I said 3 days home for a month and a half or whatever it was. I think we said ‘what are we doing?’ and they said ‘right now the creative is you guys are gonna come in and attack Randy [Orton] – which is crazy because travel is telling us this – you guys are gonna attack Randy and then NXT is gonna come in and jump you guys and beat you down.'”

“We said no, absolutely not, we’re not coming in to do that. They said ‘well they’ve got you scheduled, they need you.’ I said ‘we’re not doing that, have [Paul] Heyman – who was booking at the time – call us and tell us that.'”

Harwood then goes on to explain that the duo did speak to Paul Heyman but Heyman’s antics on the phone weren’t fooling anyone as he apparently pretended to have a conversation with Vince McMahon:

“So Paul Heyman called us, he said ‘hey guys I hear there’s some problems with you guys not wanting to come to Raw.’ We said absolutely, this is our deal, we haven’t been home for this long, we’re SmackDown guys, we’ve gotta go to NXT this day, why do we need to be there? [Heyman answered] ‘Well we need you to do this, you’re a very vital part of this angle.'”

“We said what is it? [Heyman said] ‘Well we’re finally gonna have you break up the deal with Randy, we’re gonna have you beat him up.’ We said what’s gonna happen after that? Well then NXT is gonna invade the ring and you guys are gonna get the sh*t kicked out of you by NXT which is gonna set up for stuff later.”

“I said no we’re not doing that, sorry. I said Paul we were told by travel that we had creative for Raw, we’re expecting to go home, I’m gonna see my wife and my daughter, and we’re told by travel. He said hang on one second, and he had the phone right up to his mouth – Paul thinks he’s this incredible worker, he’s a great carny let’s just put it like that.”

“He says ‘hey Vince [McMahon] yeah, it’s The Revival…yeah…uh huh…they were told by travel, can you believe that Vince?’ Yeah, Vince can’t believe that either, he can’t believe you were told by travel what your creative was’ and he said ‘Vince what do you think…?’ It was such a carny thing to do and so we said Paul we’re absolutely not gonna be there, we can’t do that, I’m gonna go home to see my family.”

“He says ‘hang on one second…Vince, they say they can’t, they wanna go see their family…yeah…I think they should too, I think it’s a great idea…alright guys so I’m gonna talk to Vince a little bit more but I think we’ve got you off of that Raw.'”

“And it’s like man we know you’re not talking to Vince, we know he’s not there. So that was just some of the stuff we had to deal with at the time. I don’t fault Paul for that, I don’t hold any hard feelings to Paul for that because I think he was a fan of ours but I think he was also doing what his job entailed him to do. But it’s like you can be straight up with us, you can be honest with us.”

Dax Harwood also revealed on his podcast the real value of his original main roster WWE contract, a contract many suggested he should just be happy with despite not being used as he wished in the company.

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