Every Original WWE NXT Black & Gold Roster Member - Where Are They Now?
14. Derrick Bateman
What was he doing at the time?
You'll find lots of credit for Derrick Bateman elsewhere on this list, because what he did alongside Johnny Curtis was, for around a year, some of the lowkey best stuff a useless WWE had to offer. Leading an ensemble that also included Kaitlyn, Maxine and assorted others that bumped into them along the way, he was joyously creative and seemingly unbothered by the absurdity of the world he inhabited.
In something of a nice crossover between the two eras, the pair main evented the second taping at Full Sail with Bateman picking up the win. It didn't rocket him back to the top of the wrestling world or anything, but those that had watched along during the Redemption years in particular got their own slice of validation when the two, at long last, locked horns.
What is he doing now?
Still at it, but the decade since his first WWE release has been a weird one. As Ethan Carter III in TNA, he came in with what still counted for buzz and rapidly ascended up the card thanks to storyline links to his "Aunt Dixie".
The new and seemingly improved EC3 run eventually got him back into WWE, but after a short and slightly underwhelming reintroduction in NXT, he was hung out to dry on the chaotic 2019 main roster. Like so many others at the time, he became shorthand for the creative disarray of the era, and like even more, he was cruelly released during the pandemic. He's never stopped wrestling, but thanks to controversial and/or odd and/or outright bad runs with the likes of Control Your Narrative, NWA Powerrr and most recently TNA, the laughs have increasingly trended towards being at - rather than with - him.