The Grizzled Young Veterans discuss their motivation for leaving WWE this year.
In April, it was reported that The Dyad (aka the Grizzled Young Veterans) were looking to leave WWE. The duo comprised of Zack Gibson and James Drake later revealed that their requests to be released were denied. However, their contracts with the company expired in October, meaning that they were soon set to be free agents. In a new interview with Metro UK, the Grizzled Young Veterans disclosed some of the reasoning behind their departures from WWE.
“In a nutshell, this is one of the big driving forces as to why we wanted to leave and get out because without going into too much, we just weren’t particularly happy with how things were going,” Zack Gibson said. “It all felt a bit boring. And ultimately this is our job, but it’s also it’s our hobby, and it’s our life. So we want to be enjoying what we’re doing. Now we’re back out in the wild west. It all feels exciting and fresh again, it feels a little bit like starting over, like you’ve got a new lease on life.”
GYV Wanted To Wrestle More
Gibson added that another contributing factor to their exit was the team’s wish to wrestle more often. Due to the limitations of the WWE NXT schedule, the Grizzled Young Veterans felt they were missing out on opportunities to truly live out their passion.
“Our decision to move on wasn’t necessarily like, ‘we don’t like that company anymore!’ It’s not a big middle finger to the company, the company is doing great business, it’s just we felt that as a product, we weren’t doing the best business,” Gibson said. “One of my strongest suits in this job is talking. It’s always been one of my calling cards. And then again, situationally – no one was out to get us – but we found ourselves in a position where now we’re not talking. Now we’re just reading one line every four weeks.”
“I’m missing the thing that I like, this is what I live for.” Gibson added. “You only get X amount of time, on the on the planet, you only get one life. So you better spend it doing the thing that you actually enjoy doing!”
Despite WWE denying their requests for a release, GYV remained heavily involved in NXT. They were a focal point of programming leading up to their eventual exits in October.
“A lot of people have had that in the past, and they’ve just decided to stay at home, [But] it wouldn’t have been a good look for us, and it wouldn’t have been a good look for the company,” James Drake said.
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