Cash Wheeler Almost Retired Following 2023 Arrest

Cash Wheeler arrest in 2023 for firearms offences threw doubt into whether the FTR member would be able to perform at that year’s inaugural AEW All In event, but it seems it almost spelled the permanent end of Wheeler’s professional wrestling career.

Wheeler was arrested for aggravated assault with a firearm in August 2023, and before the case was formally dropped in May 2024 there was a real chance of Wheeler facing trial and potential jail time for his alleged actions. Speaking with Renee Paquette on AEW Close Up, Wheeler spoke more of the arrest and court proceedings:

“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,” said Wheeler.

Cash continued, noting what repercussions he could have faced if 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.”

Wheeler’s tag partner Dax Harwood noted that Wheeler offered to retire in order to save Harwood from any fallout:

“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,” said Harwood.

“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