Duke Hudson confirms WWE release: ‘On to the next chapter’

Duke Hudson has confirmed he is no longer with WWE.

The former member of Chase U was released sometime last month, Fightful Select reported on Monday. Our own Dave Meltzer confirmed the news in the most recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio.

On Tuesday, Hudson posted a video on social media featuring him interviewing himself on a talk show-style segment titled “Wrestling with Identity.”

Hudson in black clothing: “Welcome to Wrestling With Identity. Do we have a name for you or us yet?”

Sad Hudson in white clothing: “I don’t know.”

Hudson in black clothing: “All right, well, let’s get straight to the point. You’ve been fired, which might be breaking news to a lot of the people here. I don’t think I’ve seen anything online, and you weren’t a part of a group with budget cuts, right? So this really was more of a ‘we hate you.’ That’s probably why you look so rough. I mean, I’m pulling it off, but now that the cat’s out of the bag, how do you feel about wasting six years of your life in that building?”

Sad Hudson: “I wouldn’t say it was a waste.”

Hudson in black clothing: “Ah, come on, think about everything that happened in your time there.”

Sad Hudson: “Like what?”

Hudson in black clothing: “Well, you and Bronnie (Bronson Reed), for example. I mean, you started at the same time, you came up in Australia together. Now he’s jumping off the top of cages at Survivor Series, and you’re being written off TV… again. Okay. So Rhea, for example, she is a megastar. She grew up watching you wrestle in Australia. You love telling people that story. Right, well, they overtook you. Your time was wasted.”

Sad Hudson: “I can be happy for my friends and be disappointed in my own shortcomings at the same time.”

Hudson in black clothing: “Oh, come on! You’re free now! You can say whatever you want to say. Don’t just stick to what you learned in media training. Tell me what you want to say!

Sad Hudson: “I don’t know.”

Hudson in black clothing: “I’m not done with you. We’ll be right back.”

Fellow Chase U alumni, Andre Chase, released the following statement about Hudson:

Hudson’s WWE release was addressed by our own Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez on last night’s edition of Wrestling Observer Radio.

Alvarez said on the show:

“They had Chase U, and Chase U was super over in NXT. And everybody used to always say, ‘Well, this act will never get over on the main roster blah blah blah,’ but you know what? Every time NXT ran on a PLE weekend and they drew from the normal WWE crowd cause they got seven, eight thousand people in the building for NXT, Chase U always got over. They were always one of the hottest act when they ran one of those big buildings on PLE weekend. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked for more than six months or whatever, I have no idea why they didn’t call that act up, give it a shot for six months, maybe they’d sell a s–t ton of merch and get over.”

Meltzer added:

“I was a little surpised but this is the deal, he’s 34 years old and I think the decision was essentially that we’ve had him in developmental for, what’s it been, for six years?”

“Levesque is the one who makes the calls and for whatever reason, he didn’t see Duke as a main roster guy.”

Google Icon

Exclusive access to podcasts and newsletters

Subscribe