James Drake and Zack Gibson go into depth about their release from WWE.
The Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake & Zack Gibson) were able to leave WWE in October 2023, as the duo's contracts with the company expired. Just months before, the duo had requested their release from the company, but those requests were denied by WWE.
Drake and Gibson recently sat down with Fightful for a new interview. In the chat, Drake talked about what went into the release and how the duo's careers in NXT ended up panning out.
James Drake: It was around about March or April. I think to be honest, it was around about just after NXT TakeOver WrestleMania [weekend]. We did that show, and honestly, the match we did on that show, I thoroughly enjoyed. The crowd were going crazy for it, it was a very story-driven match. Really happy with the match. But it just felt at that time, it felt like that was our exit for us. It wasn’t at that point, we decided. It was something we were in conversations for a year before then as we saw a lot of our colleagues move on from the brand as they felt what was best for them. A lot of them have done well for themselves. It just felt like we were, without trying to say we’re victims because we’re not, but we were just victims of bad timing when it came to our career within NXT America. The original plan was, we were going to move out at the beginning of January 2020. We were actually in the process of going back and forth in January 2020 to March 2020. Every week, we were doing NXT TV on a Wed day at the time, we were flying home, we were finishing up our UK indies on the weekends, then we’d pack our bags, take more of our stuff over to an apartment that WWE very kindly offered us. We’d actually moved all of our belongings over there over a six-week period. In that final week, when we actually got rid of all of our stuff, we got landlocked in the UK did COVID. But that was the original plan was for us to move out then, and then steamroll into the WrestleMania TakeOver that year. At the time, that’s when they were doing arenas, and the brand itself was red-hot. Obviously, COVID happened, and a lot worse things happened in life than our careers. Then we got back, we had about six-to-eight months of good stuff on NXT. We did stuff with MSK, we did stuff with Ciampa and Thatcher, some stuff I really, really thoroughly enjoyed. Then 2.0 happened, and that was a big overhaul of everything.
Zack Gibson then went into depth about NXT 2.0 and talked about how things changed so quickly.
Zack Gibson: "I don’t want to air too much of WWE’s dirty laundry because that’s obviously for them to talk about, but there was a lot of changes. There were so many changes happening backstage that one week, there was this new directive, they just tore it all down, decided to go in this completely new direction. So now the writers have a completely new direction to go with, they have new targets and quotas that they have to hit. We have to put X amount of new athletes on the show, so suddenly we’re not the focus anymore. Then two weeks go by, there’s another huge shift behind the scenes, now we’re doing this. They were just, I don’t know what the fuck they were doing, for lack of a better term, to be honest [laughs]. But it was changing every week, it seemed, and there were so many things going on until they finally found their feet again. Maybe not found their feet’s the right word, but until they decided fully what they were doing. There was a couple of weeks where it was just a different thing every single week, a different directive every single week. Within that period of chaos, we were not the focus. Again, they don’t owe us anything. The company owes us nothing. Pro wrestling owes us nothing. But us, we care about our own career. Our main focus is our career. Their main focus may not be, but our main focus is. So when we don’t become the focus anymore, and we start getting shifted into a different role where we almost become player-coaches, on-screen but kind of helping out a lot more talent, then over a longer period, we realized, ‘Well, our career’s not going anywhere right now. This is not going in the direction that we want it to.’ The money’s good, but it’s not worth feeling this way, so it’s time to move on and go and have fun again."
James Drake also chimed in on the situation and noted that they were good tools that helped people get ready near their end of the run with the company.
"Yeah, definitely, I think it’s a nice complement, and it really is a nice complement when the office trusts you to guide people through live TV. A lot of people have done amazing for themselves, but at that time, they were literally thrown in the deep end, and they’ve done really well for themselves now. But it was a nice complement, it was nice that they trusted us to get people through two-segment, three-segment matches, but then we became player-coaches, and for what it’s worth, I felt, we became old furniture, so to speak, because of how quickly everything turns over there. Especially with NXT, it’s such a fast business model where characters are on TV six months to a year, maybe two years at a max, and then they’re off onto the main roster. By the time me and Zack decided, we were already three years in, and we were very much good tools for them to get people ready. But again, it’s good money, and it’s a comfortable job. Myself and Zack, we didn’t have to turn up to the PC. The PC was for people who were learning to wrestle. We didn’t have to do that. Our actual schedule near the end was just a Tuesday, and I live ten minutes away from the Performance Center, so I would do my match, and then I’d go home, and I’d see my lovely dogs and my wife. It’d be very comfortable, but that’s not why I moved away from my friends and family and why we didn’t close our business in the UK. It’s not what we sacrificed all this for, and it wasn’t a fallout or anything with the company. It was just, we need to move on, to either move on and just progress our careers elsewhere and never look back, or go elsewhere and if everything aligns a certain way, we might go back. But we just don’t know how things are going. We just know we needed to shake it up."
The duo were then asked how they went about requesting their release from the company, prompting Gibson to explain that they were straight forward with Shawn Michaels and Matt Bloom. Furthermore, Gibson also talked about Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre and noted that they could end up taking a similar path.
Zack Gibson: "We do go in physically, and we talked to to the bosses, and we just told them, clear as day, we didn’t want to pull any punches or hide anything. Again, to reiterate what James said, it wasn’t a fallout. A lot of people think that some of the moves that we made was like a big, ‘Fuck you’ to the company, and it just wasn’t. It was all completely selfish, to be honest. We went straight in, and we talked to the head coaches, and we just told Matt Bloom and Shawn Michaels, and we just told them exactly where we were at. It felt at the time, if we were to stay, it was almost as good as a retirement because we just weren’t progressing. We weren’t enjoying it. I honestly started getting to a point where I was thinking, ‘I don’t know if I like wrestling anymore. Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe I just don’t enjoy this anymore. I know now that that’s definitely not the case because I was just wasn’t enjoying what we were doing. It wasn’t fulfilling, and it wasn’t enough money for me to, as I say, essentially retire. If you’re gonna make me a millionaire, I’ll retire for that money [laughs]. But it wasn’t enough money for me to give up on the thing that I’ve done my entire life. So we just went in, we told them exactly where we were at. We said we came here to progress to the main roster. With X, Y, and Z in place, and with how we’re being presented, we don’t think we’re getting there for a long time. If we do stick to this and scratch and claw and keep on doing what you guys are asking us to do, it’s still not guaranteed that we’ll get there. Again, we decided to make that move to go elsewhere because we can enjoy it elsewhere. If we find that we are fulfilled and we manage to pick up another deal elsewhere that pays all the bills and keeps us happy, then maybe that’s the final move for us when we go away. But also, we wouldn’t be the first people in this industry to side-step, to go elsewhere, carry on doing what you’re doing, enjoy yourself out there, rebuild, make yourself a name, and then circle back. Obviously, Cody Rhodes is the one that everybody talks about because he’s currently circled back in a very explosive way, straight into the main event scene, top guy on the brand. So some people will naturally try to compare us to someone like a Cody Rhodes, but again, he’s not the only guy to do something like that. Drew McIntyre did it in a similar way. Came back straight into the main event scene. You’ve also got guys up and down the card. You’ve got guys at the bottom of the card who did this in their own way, you’ve got guys in the middle of the card. But there are so any examples of people leaving a company, coming straight back in the future. So the door’s still open, the relationships are still there. It’s just on us now as to what happens next, and we’re not forcing anything. We’re just going with it, seeing what happens, and enjoying ourselves."
James Drake then further explained their release request and noted that Bloom and Michaels weren't surprised.
James Drake: "For what it’s worth, when we went in to explain it, it wasn’t like kicking the door down and going, ‘Hey, we fucking quit,’ or anything like that. We messaged the office the night before like, ‘Can we meet up on the Monday?’ It’s like the, ‘Hey, we need to talk’ sort of text. Then when we had the conversation with Matt Bloom and Shawn Michaels, they weren’t surprised. I think if they were active wrestlers in beer youth and they were in our situation, I feel like they would have probably done the same thing. It was kind of like, ‘Yeah, you boys need to shake it up, so to speak, and do what’s best for you.’"
Elsewhere in the interview, Zack Gibson said that the Grizzled Young Veterans haven't signed exclusively with any company. Fans can learn more here.
Furthermore, check out Fightful's full interview with Gibson and Drake in the video linked at the top of this article.
