Dax Harwood Talked AEW Star Out Of Retiring
Dax Harwood stopped his friend from retiring.
It was reported on August 18th, 2023 that Cash Wheeler (real name Daniel Wheeler) had been arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a firearm. The alleged incident took place weeks earlier on July 27th.
According to a police report, Wheeler’s alleged victim claimed that the star was “pointing a black semi-automatic handgun out of the driver’s window at him with a strong stare.”
A trial date was initially set for May 20th, 2024, but prosecutors dropped the case before that date arrived.
During a new interview with Renee Paquette on Close Up, Wheeler reflected on the incident and the crazy aftermath.
It was a very rough patch. From August, when I found out about it, to May when everything finally got dismissed, as it should have been the whole time. It was a long stretch. There was a point in time where I couldn’t think about life after May because I knew everything hinged on that. That was the be all, end all.
I told my lawyers when it happened; I would not take any sort of plea deal, I would not plead guilty to any charge. I was not guilty and I would not take any sort of plea. On the flip of that, it means I faced the full repercussions if they do find me guilty,
The former Tag Team Champion went on to say that he knew his career with AEW was over if he’d been found guilty.
“I don’t know for sure because it’s based on priors and history, which I don’t have. The maximum, if the judge sees fit, is five years in prison.
I knew that, but I also knew that I didn’t do it and I was not going to sit here and be like, ‘I’ll take any charge to not go to jail.’ If I do that, AEW has to get rid of me. I can never leave the country again. Everything I ever worked for, over something that never happened.
The way it all went about, I don’t see how it ever got that far. I didn’t find out about it until a week after the fact. They never pulled me over and found anything. They never came to my house and searched. They never had a witness, a picture, a video. All they had was one guy’s statement and that was it. I found out a week later that there was already an arrest warrant for me.”
Dax Harwood Stopped Cash Wheeler From Retiring
During the conversation, Dax Harwood gave his take on the situation, revealing Wheeler wanted to retire, but he talked him out of it.
“I don’t want to speak for him. From my perspective, he told me when everything happened. I guess a week after he told me what happened, he said, we have two separate contracts. He said, ‘I think I’m going to retire because I don’t want to subject you to any of this stuff that I’m going through.’
He knew the backlash on Twitter because it’s a cesspool. ‘I’m just going to retire. You don’t have to worry because your contract is with you. I’m going to leave wrestling.’ I had to talk him into not retiring,”
FTR were most recently in action on the September 12th edition of Collision where they defeated the Grizzled Young Veterans.
H/t to Fightful