Cash Wheeler considered retirement after his 2023 arrest.
Back in August 2023, FTR’s Cash Wheeler was arrested for aggravated assault with a firearm following an incident that took place the month prior. The incident in question was described as a bout of road rage where the former AEW Tag Team Champion “flashed a gun” at the occupants of the other vehicle, whom Wheeler did not know.
Wheeler turned himself in on August 17th after a warrant was issued for his arrest in Orange County Florida. Wheeler was arraigned the next day and was ordered to pay a $2,500 bond.
Despite news in February of 2024 that Wheeler was facing criminal charges and would stand trial, the case against the AEW star was ultimately dropped in May of 2024.
Speaking in a new interview with Renee Paquette on Close Up, Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood opened up about the incident. Wheeler admitted it was a difficult time in his life, and insisted that he was innocent of the charges brought against him.
“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.”
When asked what consequences he’d have faced if he were found guilty, Cash Wheeler continued:
“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.”
Cash Wheeler Offered To Retire To Save FTR Partner Dax Harwood’s AEW Career
Dax Harwood then revealed that Wheeler came to him with an offer to retire in order to save his tag team partner’s career. Harwood said he had to convince Wheeler not to step away.
“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.”
Wheeler admitted that he didn’t love the idea of retirement, but he didn’t know what to do given the circumstances. Dax Harwood admitted that it was a scary time, and that he expected to be rejected by fans at AEW All In when the pair faced The Young Bucks shortly after Wheeler’s arrest.
“I was afraid. I was afraid for him, but I was afraid for us. We’ve worked so hard…now, it’s almost cliche to say, ‘I bet on myself.’ If you really think about it, we were the first guys that left the other company because we believed in what we thought we could be. We had done so much great stuff and had built this legacy that I am so proud of.
I remember all those days, coming into work, talking to him on the phone, I had to be so positive for him because I knew, if it were me, there is no way I could sleep at night. Sometimes, if you have that calming voice…when we went to Wembley and wrestled The Bucks in front of 80,000 people, that’s when I was like, ‘I think we’re going to be okay.’ I was expecting the fans to turn on us. They didn’t. They embraced us and loved us more.”
h/t Fightful