Harwood’s significant other was able to help him through it.
FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler’s) reign as IWGP Tag Team Champions came to an end when the duo lost to Bishamon (YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto) at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17.
Harwood has spoken about the match and what it meant to him to compete at the Tokyo Dome but on the latest FTR with Dax Harwood podcast, he opened about an anxiety attack he had while in Japan for Wrestle Kingdom. Harwood credited his wife for helping him through it.
So, I had an anxiety attack while I was in Japan. The worst once I’ve had since it happened in 2021 and I was completely lost, I was by myself in a different country in a room by myself and I was just lost and had no idea what to do. I stayed awake all night and my anxiety stems from sleep. My anxiety also stems from having anxiety as well… That’s what it was for me and I was scared to death. Thankfully, I’m able to have the woman of my dreams and call her and say, ‘Babe, please help me’ and I called her multiple times and she talked me through it and helped me out. But, what I would say is continue to try and tell yourself (listener who sent in the question) this is anxiety talking. This isn’t a norm, this isn’t what your normal is. This is your anxiety talking. Also know that it’s happening all across the globe to everybody. Also know that it’s okay to be vulnerable and it’s okay to take medication and I’m a big advocate of medication. Medication was made for people like you and me, okay? It was put there for a reason, it was made for a reason. It gets a bad rep because that’s the easy news story, that’s the easy news story to say, oh, they took four Klonopin and then drank a whole bottle of tequila. That’s the easy story. But the good story isn’t, oh, well he took one Klonopin, one milligram of Klonopin and he was great. No one wants to hear that, no one wants to report that. So it’s okay to go to the doctor and it’s okay to say I have this problem and it’s okay to say, I need help and it’s okay to have that help in the form of medication and you take your medication, alright? And that’s therapy and medication and what I perceive the man above to be, God, has helped me so much and I would implore anybody who’s in the same boat as me that-that works for you as well as Klonopin worked for me… When I was having anxiety attacks, it allowed me to calm down for a second, take a step back, reassess everything and realize this is anxiety and then I was able to ween myself off of Klonopin and now I just take Zoloft and Zoloft just helps manage every single day. It helps me manage and understand that patience and peace of mind is a great thing to have.
Harwood previously apologized to members of the AEW roster who took umbrage with past comments on his podcast.
He shared that he had a conversation with one of the talents who he heard had an issue with him and here’s Dax’s recount of that chat:
I had a conversation with one of my work colleagues about three days ago because I had heard some issues they may have had and expressed in the locker room and I called them and I said, ‘Look, hey, you may apparently have an issue with me and I have a lot of the boys telling me about it. If you have an issue with me, all you gotta do is call me, that’s it. You don’t have to run to the office, you don’t have to run to the boys, you don’t have to run to Meltzer. All you gotta do is tell me and we can figure it out or we can completely disagree and not figure it out. But at least you came to me.’
FTR were last in action for All Elite Wrestling on December 21st. Tony Khan granted the duo time off as they consider their next career move. Their AEW deals are up in April.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit FTR with Dax Harwood with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
