AEW’s Dax Harwood on Shawn Michaels’ Raw 25 snub, Briscoes match, WWE trademark demands

Former AEW Tag Team Champion Dax Harwood opened up about his past struggles with both anxiety and bulimia on the latest edition of Renee Paquette’s podcast, also telling a story about how Shawn Michaels made an odd decision at WWE Raw 25 after a heartfelt conversation between the two.

Both he and Cash Wheeler were set to get a beatdown from DX and Balor Club at 2018’s WWE Raw 25 after a match with Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson and that he had some hesitations about how it would make the then-The Revival look. He said he was catching up with Michaels backstage from their days together at the Performance Center, talking about the issues he and Wheeler had recently gone through with recent injuries and that he personally had been in a dark place but that his wife helped pull him through. 

Harwood said Michaels, who had praised the two men at the PC, opened up to him and said he had a similar story with his wife also getting him through his own rough patches. Harwood said it was a real bonding moment and then later when Michaels was with the rest of DX in the back with The Revival, he began making fun of Harwood’s biceps injury and other issues, seemingly out of nowhere.

He said after the segment was done, only one DX member said thanks to the team and was cool with them: Sean “X-Pac” Waltman.

“Everyone else was so cold and treated us like we were sh*t on the bottom of their shoes,” he said, adding that while he will never forget that feeling, he would like to have a conversation with Michaels about it someday.

Harwood also said he isn’t sure when the highly-anticipated FTR match with The Briscoe Brothers will happen and that in real life, he thinks they feel they are better than FTR. He also said he didn’t know why GCW booked the Briscoes open challenge at WRLD on GCW like they did because everyone assumed it was going to be them and they obviously weren’t booked for the show.

He added that promoters have offered the two teams a lot of money to do the match and suggested Paquette ask AEW’s Tony Khan what the story is. He also wanted to know from Khan when they were going to work with the Young Bucks again, joking that Khan “forgot they work there.”

Other notes:

• Harwood also went into detail about his struggles with bulimia starting in high school and then anxiety which began last June. Through therapy, it was discovered the latter stemmed from a miscarriage he and his wife had, causing major sleep issues for months. He credited his wife, the therapy and his relationship with God on his improvements.
• He said that leading into FTR’s much-anticipated match with the Bucks, he couldn’t sleep for two weeks because he was worried about whether it would deliver what fans were expecting with that much buildup.
• He said his issues with bulimia and body dysmorphia started in high school when he was embarrassed how much weight he was putting on after his run playing football was done. He learned that his friend that was living with his family was also throwing up once a day and when Wheeler learned why he was doing it and the results, he also did it and it became a daily addiction. He said that feeling of being ashamed of his body still bothers him today, especially with social media, and that he hopes his daughter never gets involved in the business so she doesn’t have to deal with the same issues.
• He talked about how he and Wheeler’s WWE release came about in 2020 and that despite the company throwing increased money offers at he and Wheeler, they knew they weren’t going to get the opportunity they deserved. He said his wife was having health issues and he wanted to be released sooner to be at home with her. He estimated he had two months remaining and was WWE told him they would extend his deal through August 2020 due to his injuries unless he and Wheeler signed over their trademarks at which point they would get their immediate release. He estimated he and Wheeler had spent $10,000-$20,000 on the various trademarks, but decided it wasn’t worth it to keep them.