Report: Two WWE Stars Are Gone Months After Requesting Their Releases

The Grizzled Young Veterans (aka The Dyad) are finally gone from WWE months after asking for their releases.

September 14, 2023, 9:51am

The Grizzled Young Veterans’ James Drake and Zack Gibson, also known as The Dyad’s Jagger Reid and Rip Fowler in NXT, are gone from WWE according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Dave Meltzer. News broke back in April that the former NXT UK Tag Team Champions had requested their releases, only to be told no by the company. The pair then spent the summer feuding with The Creed Brothers, going so far as to force Julius and Brutus to “quit” the company in a loser leaves town match at one point (they’d come back). The two first joined forces as a tag team in Progress Wrestling in 2017 and would sign with WWE’s NXT UK brand the following year.

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Gibson and Drake then made the jump to NXT proper in 2020 and would spend the next two years repeatedly coming up short in winning the NXT Tag Team Championships. They’d then get repackaged as members of Joe Gacy’s Schism faction in July 2022.

“The other two…Rip Fowler and Jagger Reid are gone. Their contract is up, and I thought there was going to be some kind of angle or something, but it’s just, they’re gone,” Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio.

Shawn Michaels on The Dyad Staying With NXT After Requesting Their Releases

“Yeah, obviously I do. And look, they were guys that clearly I wanted to come over and bring over from the UK. I think they’re very talented, but again, I absolutely understand,” Shawn Michaels said in a media conference call in May after The Dyad’s release request was rejected. “It’s one of the things that I tell everybody here. Do I want it to be here in the WWE for you to have your success? Absolutely. I can’t lie about that, but really this is about wanting to help all, no matter who comes through these doors, help them to have success in this business as a whole.”

“I always tell everybody I feel so fortunate for the life that I have and my family that I have, and it’s because of this job. And now, there’s a real opportunity for everyone that is in this line of work to have that,” Michaels said. “I want that for them, so I understand absolutely the way that they feel, but as I mentioned to them, ‘While you’re here, man, I still want to put you in a prominent role.’ Again, there are no hard feelings in that respect. There’s too much talent there to waste or to leave on the table, and so, certainly, if they don’t mind working, I sure as heck don’t mind using them.”