The Identiites Of NXT's Dyad Revealed To Be...

Former tag champs assume new personae at Joe Gacy's side, removing their hoods.

by Scott Carlson
The Dyad
WWE

Joe Gacy's hooded goons removed their gear Tuesday to unsurprisingly reveal themselves as "new" superstars Jagger Reid and Rip Fowler, who might be better known to NXT and NXT UK fans as James Drake and Zack Gibson, respectively.

The duo have been shadowing Gacy for the past couple months as his character has evolved from a hypocritical "liberal" (or more accurately, WWE higher-ups' image of a liberal) to a mystical cult leader. Tuesday, the two removed their hoods and Gacy "baptized" them, which led to both becoming clean-shaven and each having different colored eyes.

Gibson & Drake of course enjoyed success as the Grizzled Young Veterans, the inaugural NXT UK Tag Team Champions and twice runners-up in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. As part of the NXT 2.0 roster, however, GYV were booked pretty much like enhancement talent. Their names were shortened to just Gibson & Drake, and then a short time later, they delivered a backstage promo where they said they would no longer be seen around NXT.

In revealing Reid & Fowler, Gacy tacitly acknowledged that they were previously someone else, telling them that their past should stay in the past, and that there was no going back.

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It's hard to see how these new personae have legs paired with Gacy, but stranger things have happened. Let's just hope they aren't going to simply be cannon fodder for a mid-card spooky heel. That's about as dead-end of a gimmick as it gets.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.