AEW star Cash Wheeler has opened up about the situation with his arrest last year that nearly led to him retiring from wrestling.
Wheeler and FTR tag team partner Dax Harwood appeared together on ‘Close Up With Renee Paquette’ on AEW’s YouTube channel and spoke publicly about Wheeler’s arrest.
Harwood noted that he had to talk Wheeler out of retirement amid the situation, saying:
“I guess maybe a week after he told me what had happened, he said, because we have two separate contracts, he said, ‘I think I’m gonna retire because I don’t wanna subject you to any of this stuff that I’m going through’.
“He knew the backlash on Twitter because Twitter’s a cesspool – all social media – and he was like, ‘I’m just gonna retire and you don’t have to worry because your contract’s with you and I’m just gonna leave wrestling’.
“He has a little cabin back home – he said, ‘I’m just gonna live there and not worry about it anymore’. So I had to talk him into not retiring.”
Getting into detail about the situation itself, Wheeler, a two-time AEW World Tag Team Champion with Harwood, said:
“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 when 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 whatsoever, that I was not guilty and I was not gonna take any sort of plea. But on the flip of that, that means I face the full repercussions if they do find me guilty.
“I don’t know for sure (what the repercussions would have been) because it’s based on priors and history and stuff like that, which I don’t have, but the maximum for that if the judge sees fit is five years in prison. And I knew that, but also I knew that I didn’t do it, and I was not gonna sit here and be like, ‘I’ll take any charge whatsoever to not go to jail’, because if I do that, then this goes away, AEW has to get rid of me, I can never leave the country again… everything I’ve ever worked for over something that never happened.
“Just the way it all went about, I don’t see how it ever got that far. I didn’t even 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.
“The thing about coming into work – and I’m sure there were people that talked when I wasn’t around and I’m sure there were people that had some whispers to say and whatever, but I never really wasted too much thought about that. I have to be able to compartmentalize these things. I come from a pretty rough upbringing, so I feel like I can handle a lot of pressure and stressful situations really well.
“So I did what I could with it. I knew that I was innocent and that’s the one thing that I think kept me from being too stressed out about it. But I’m taking all the precautions I can. I’m thinking, if it goes to trial, there’s a good chance that somebody finds me guilty. So I did what I could.
“When we got back from Wembley, the day that I landed, I paid thousands of dollars out of pocket to drive to Tampa to take a polygraph test, which I passed. It doesn’t matter to the masses – the general public’s gonna have their thoughts and their beliefs, and the ones that wanna think I’m guilty are gonna think it no matter what, (and) the ones that wanna believe me, they believed me the whole time.
“But yeah I paid thousands out of pocket to take a polygraph. Just like Meet The Parents. They put something on your palm so if you sweat too much it falls off. They read your pulse. They put the fingertips on there. They put pads under your butt, pads under your feet, pads under your elbow, breath strap, heart monitor. They can read if you take bigger breaths, if your breath starts getting rapid, they can get your heart rate. If you’re clenching your feet or pressing down through your toes, they register that. If your arms are too tense they register that.
“It’s just something, ‘I’m willing to do this just to show…’ It’s like an hours-long process. It’s the same 10 questions but they ask them in different orders, and they ask you four times. And you’ve got to sit there, and every question is asked, and then they have to wait 30 seconds to register, and then you just go through it all again. It doesn’t matter what he’s asking, every time he starts to talk, I feel my stomach just drops. But I was willing to go through it. And again, it’s not gonna change everybody’s opinion, but I did everything I could on my end to make sure the people that did believe in me… having to tell him (Dax Harwood), I was like, ‘How do I break this news?’
“I found out about a week after the incident happened, maybe a little bit more than a week, and I didn’t tell anybody until I got to work and I told HR and I told him. It was in the Carolinas and my mom rode with me, and I didn’t tell my mom.
“The guy in charge of my case, he falls off the map for weeks so I can’t even turn myself in. So like, I’m trying to do all this without telling my family. He (Dax) knows, legal knows, and that’s it. So I’m trying to get answers and I can’t get anybody to answer me for weeks, and I’m like, ‘What do I do?’ I don’t wanna get pulled over because if I do there’s a warrant out for me. Like, I’m trying to work with you guys here.
“Finally they called me back and we arranged for me to turn myself in, so that’s when I start calling my family. I called my Mom and I said, ‘Hey, I need you to know, I’m gonna get arrested tonight, here’s the whole story, I’ll tell you more when I get out, but I don’t know when that’s gonna be’.
“There’s bodycam footage I’m sure. I met them at the police station and my lawyer’s there, they read me my rights and they handcuff me. They’re trying to talk to me about wrestling in the car ride over, and I’m like, ‘Guys, I don’t wanna answer questions about Ricky Steamboat, I’m sorry’.”
Chas Wheeler and Dax Harwood are set to team with HOOK and the Outrunners in a 10-man tag match against Roderick Strong, Rush, the Grizzled Young Veterans and The Beast Mortos on AEW Collision this coming Saturday.
Their most recent match was on the last episode of AEW Collision where they defeated GYV in a regular tag team match.
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