Grizzled Young Veterans make first post-WWE appearance

  • Ian Carey
  • By 

The Grizzled Young Veterans are back. 

James Drake and Zack Gibson, formerly known as Jagger Reid & Rip Fowler in NXT, appeared at Sunday’s DEADLOCK Pro Wrestling event in New Jersey. They defeated Anthony Henry & JD Drake, the Workhorsemen, after answering the team’s open challenge. 

It was Drake and Gibson’s first match since their WWE contracts expired recently.

The Grizzled Young Veterans requested their release from WWE in April but were kept under contract until recently. Their last match in NXT was a loss to the Creed Brothers in a steel cage on August 29. 

On Saturday, Gibson and Drake cut a promo on social media revealing why they decided to leave WWE. 

“We took a long look around and we said to ourselves, ‘If this is the big life, then we’re not looking to live it.’ We are sick of taking the safe option. We are sick of reading the same old boring scripts that go absolutely nowhere,” Drake said.

“A very famous British wrestler told us when we arrived in the States that it was time for us to put our head down and start listening to orders if we wanted to succeed,” Gibson said. “He said that he wanted us to have all the fun out of our system because there’s no pirates here. Well I am sorry for anyone that had different expectations for us. I am sorry that we can’t be who you wanted us to be. Simply put: we are not politicians. It’s a pirate’s life for us.”

Gibson and Drake filed to trademark their team name and individual ring names on Friday. However, WWE still holds an active trademark on the name Grizzled Young Veterans, having initially filed for it in 2020. Gibson and Drake have used the team name in promotions such as Progress dating back to 2017.