When you think of the great side plots in NFL history, things like DeflateGate, Aaron Rodgers holding a franchise hostage for three consecutive offseasons with zero pushback, and Tony Jefferson willingly admitting that he was having vision issues while playing safety are all recent ones that jump out to me. None of those however hold a flame to the latest, and perhaps greatest side plot in the over 100-year history of the league. Let me introduce those who aren't caught up to speed here to one Xavier Babudar, perhaps better known as 'Chiefsaholic', the wolf costume-wearing Kansas City Chiefs superfan that has taken unreal levels of real estate in my brain for the last five months thanks to the Trill Withers Show (Hit the sub button on the way in, A+ program), and to a lesser extent the Pat McAfee Show.
This is nothing related to his fandom, but rather the fact that Chiefsaholic 'allegedly' robbed a Tulsa Teachers Credit Union in Bixby, Oklahoma, as he was en route to the Chiefs' Week 15 tilt in Houston. Then out on bond a little over 3.5 months later, he proceeded to skip his court date and is now on the run after removing his ankle monitor. I promise you nothing that has been stated here is hyperbole, this is not an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm or Always Sunny, but very much real events by a real person. As we have officially hit the two-month mark of Chiefsaholic being on the run today, here's your lore recap, and trust me, it's quite the chain of events. (NSFW Audio Below)
Villan Origin Story
The Babudars, originally natives of California, began to effectively migrate toward Kansas City at a young age after his family filed for bankruptcy. On multiple occasions, before Xavier became, 'the Wolf', he, his brother Noah, and his Mother Carla, all faced legal troubles before making it to the midwest. Most notably being arrested for 'allegedly' forging meal certificates to use at a restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga, California in 2012. Noah and Carla both pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace charges, while Xavier ended up getting booked into a Juvenile Hall at 17 years old. After also pleading guilty to several other smaller chargers in places like Utah, Kansas, and Missouri, the Babudar family ultimately settled in the Midwest, specifically in Kansas City.
According to a piece from the New York Times, police in KC suburb Overland Park got into contact with the family "at least eight times" between 2016 and 2017, most of which were with his family in a car late outside of some office buildings, others in a hotel lobby or hotel pool. Additionally, according to an ESPN deep dive, one of those occasions was the family watching the Chiefs blow out the Jets 24-3 in 2016. None of those instances led to any charges, however, police noted that the Babudar family were essentially drifters, and were 'allegedly', "known to do auto burglaries at night." None of the three however were ever convicted of a crime on that front.
Things seemingly took a turn for the better for Xavier after this. He had gotten a job at an Amazon factory and had been employed there for nine months. His encounters with police also became a non-issue for the time being. But on one faithful day in 2018, Chiefsaholic became Chiefsaholic, and after one Twitter meme post, the rest became history.
"No One Cared Who I Was Until I Put on the Mask - Bane" - Chiefsaholic (Probably)
In a way, Xavier ditched his real life to become 'the Wolf'. He became a notable at Chiefs games and tailgates at Aarowhead and abroad, somehow becoming a larger-than-life character. Just take a peek at some excerpts from that ESPN piece
"[Chiefsaholic] meant something to them. Parents would seek him out at tailgates hoping to get a picture of the wolf with their kids, and online, ChiefsAholic became a staple of their lives."
"My daughter has pictures with him. And I had given that jersey that I won to my dad. Was that jersey paid for in a good way? I don't know. I'm protective of my daughter, so it was betrayal and disappointment. I know that sounds weird because none of us actually personally know him, but, I think, we were attached to the idea of who we thought he was."
A core part of the Chiefsaholic 'brand' was that he always had prime seating to just about every Chiefs game every season, including both Super Bowl 54 and 55 and videos like the one at the beginning where he would jump toward the camera before cutting a wrestling-style promo. Funny enough, Chiefsaholic broke his ankle in the Gillette Stadium parking lot in 2019, doing what I can only guess was one such video when it was icy out. He successfully sued the Kraft Group and won over $28,000 in damages in a suit that closed last year. Here's a wounded Chiefsaholic talking about said injury the week of Super Bowl 54 in Miami.
Fast forward some time since that accident, and Chiefsaholic really took off. The wild social media posts, giveaways of team jerseys and other team memorabilia, somehow always finding the camera at games, and he even got to go to Patrick Mahomes' charity gala which was $1,250 a ticket, and two weeks before his arrest at that. At which Chiefsaholic scored an auction win on a $10,000 Mahomes painting. According to the original tweet that this is in reply to, he also won multiple other items, but I couldn't find any tangible evidence of that on Twitter.
Becoming 'the Wolf' also led to Chiefsaholic scoring to what was likely in his mind, a date with a woman named Lindsay [leaving her last name blank here]. They went out to dinner in Phoenix in September of 2021, then a month later went to a Phoenix Suns game sitting in the 11th row according to ESPN. Chiefsaholic also took out Chiefs fan Deion Hulse and his ex-girlfriend attended a separate Phoenix Suns game in 2021 in November. ESPN got this quote from Hulse about 'the Wolf'
"I hate to say this, but [Chiefsaholic] almost represented the Kingdom, you know? I almost envied him. I wish I could go to every single game. Like, that's my dream. And he was living that dream."
If only they knew. Outside of these select few people and likely some others, Babudar was only known as Chiefsaholic to Chiefs Kingdom, which if by design, would make a ton of sense given what we know now. On the other hand, he lived out the Tom Hardy Bane "No one cared who I was until I put on the mask" line in a way.
Upholding the Mantle
As surprising/unsurprisingly as it sounds, Chiefsaholic was only one of several notable and in a line of simply preposterous Chiefs superfans before him like X-Factor and Red Xtreme for example, who got into a drag-down brawl at the 2021 Bills-Chiefs regular season tilt.
A couple of things to note here. 1) Notice the impeccable foreshadowing 2:57 into that video. 2) I cannot believe these are real people either. Straight out of 1980s WWF/1980s cartoons are some of these Chiefs fans. Anyway, for the time being, Chiefsaholic effectively became the outright fan face of Chiefs Kingdom in the interim. Now did that last relatively long? No, he would end up getting booked into jail about 14 months after this heavyweight showdown, but that's all a part of the succession plotline going on here.
Have You Seen This Wolf?
Now we're going to fast forward to the week of the 'alleged' robbery. In the week leading up, Chiefsaholic on his now-deleted Twitter account was making it sound like he wasn't going to go to Houston, but then opted to do so last minute. The only issue is that he never made it to NRG Stadium, and Chiefs Twitter was genuinely in shambles thinking something horrible happened, both the day of the Texans game and into the ensuing Monday, which is 1000 percent funnier in retrospect as a non-Chiefs fan. Of those tweets here were some of my favorite one-offs and exchanges.
"Hard Work Pays Off and Don't Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise"
Before we get into the details of Chiefsaholic's arrest, I want to highlight a tweet he sent all of three (3) days before he 'allegedly' committed this bank robbery.
You couldn't script this better if you tried. Anyway, on the morning of December 16th en route to Houston, Texas, Cheifsaholic 'allegedly' entered the Tulsa Teachers Credit Union in Bixby, Oklahoma armed, demanding "100s", before 'allegedly' jumping the counter and forcing a teller to open the vault. Once he got what he wanted, he 'allegedly' fled the bank on a bicycle, yes you read that correctly, a bicycle, and was apprehended not too far from the bank by law enforcement. According to Bixby Police, Chiefsaholic was caught with a mask (not the Wolf mask), ski goggles, a green jacket and pants, and a CO2 pistol, along with a bag with $150,000.
All Hands on Deck Meeting
Once the word officially got out that Chiefsaholic 'allegedly' robbed a bank, Chiefs Twitter set up a spaces to talk things over amongst themselves. Unfortunately, I could not find the recording of said spaces after the fact, so everything that you are about to read is second-hand from 'Scoob' of the Trill Withers Show. Outside of some of the things we've already gone over, Chiefs fans wanted to go over some of the things that should have been a tell in the lead-up.
One was the fact he put up $80,000 on the Chiefs to beat the Bills outright in Week 6 when they were a 2.5-point dog and they lost. This info lines up with the ESPN piece where several workers at the casino where the bet was placed told customers Chiefsaholic put in the slip. What was weird was apparently Chiefsaholic didn't seem to care all that much. Also, he is/was a degenerate bettor which should shock no one. Chiefsaholic notably had a $1,000 down on Chiefs backup tight end Jody Fortson to score a touchdown two weeks before that Bills game and that hit at +1800. However most of Chiefsaholic's Fan Duel bets were mainly long shot losses according to the ESPN piece, and Fan Duel banned his account after his arrest. However, he also had five thousand a pop on the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl and for Patrick Mahomes to win MVP, both of which hit and netted him $110,000 while he was in jail. And if you are wondering, yes, those slips had to be honored.
The next thing Chiefs fans went over was Chiefsaholic's claim that he graduated from Kansas State University. That took next to no time at all to debunk. Not only did he not graduate from KSU, he never even attended KSU. Now there are several pictures of him at Kansas State football games in the past, so at face value you would assume he's telling the truth, but he was simply lying about everything like LeBron James saying he's seen the Godfather trilogy six times yet couldn't name a single scene or moment.
One last thing that was apparently mentioned in that spaces was that Patrick Mahomes personally sent Chiefsaholic a pair of shoes after his Gala event, and the people in the spaces were none too pleased about that. Very disappointed that I couldn't find a recording of this space, but I imagine the content was spectacular.
Scared Money Dont Make Money
So based on the information available to us, how was Chiefsaholic able to attend several dozen Chiefs games sitting front row with a shakey betting record and without steady employment? The Bixby robbery is the only one we know about, but when ESPN asked an FBI spokesperson about any potential other robberies involving Chiefsaholic, they wouldn't confirm or deny anything. So unless he was hitting bets at a significantly higher rate than he was letting on to his Twitter followers, could he have just been on a multi-year crime spree? That would be taking 'Scared money don't make money' to a whole new level if so. Given the cost of travel and tickets to most NFL games alone that would make sense, however, especially given Chiefsaholic's past, but of course that's purely speculation [for obligatory legal purposes]. Speaking of the FBI, the folks over at Leagues of Justice said that they had been working with local authorities right after he was caught, which tracks given this falls under federal law.
Facing the Music
After seven weeks in jail with a $200,000 bond, Chiefsaholic pleaded in court to get that number lowered to $80,000. In his motion, he claimed that his mother could come to Tulsa, where he was being held, and stay with him while he was out on bond. With that said, Assistant District Attorney Morgan Medders was skeptical based on jail phone calls between the two.
"His mom says to him, 'Thank God I got your phone, wallet and a bunch of other stuff out of the glove compartment,'" Medders said in the hearing. "'Thank God they didn't get your phone, because there's a lot of bad things in that.'" - Quote via ESPN.
Definitely a smart thing to be willingly saying over a monitored phone call if you ask me. By nothing short of a miracle however, Chiefsaholic was let out on bond four days prior to the Chiefs Super Bowl victory over the Philadelphia Eagles, but despite an attempt to go to the game, was denied the opportunity to do so.
Who Could Have Saw This Coming?
In what can only be described as the least shocking outcome possible, Chiefsaholic skipped out on his next court date, slated for March 27, and was officially on the run. While additionally, he removed his ankle monitor as well, a tidbit that was meme'd on the critically acclaimed Los Angeles Chargers schedule release video. Right as that broke, so did the news of his all-new $1,000,000 bond warrant.
Just to recap, Chiefsaholic 'allegedly' committed an armed robbery at a Tulsa Teachers Credit Union in Bixby Oklahoma. Tried to lower his initial bond by over $100,000. Was caught on a highly suspect jail phone call with his mother which was played out in court. Then made a plea to travel out of state to Arizona for the Super Bowl as he got out on bond. And then finally a month and a half after somehow being allowed out with an ankle monitor, decided to make a run for it. Stunning turn of events, shocking really. I also feel like this all speaks to a much larger problem but that's not my area of expertise. Either way, this is officially the two-month mark of America's Most Wanted Wolf being on the run. How long will this ultimately last is up in the air, but there is very serious money to be made in a documentary down the line.
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