Grizzled Young Veterans Talk AEW Debut, ‘It’s An Exciting Place To Get Our Foot In The Door’

Zack Gibson and James Drake discuss their debut in AEW.

Gibson and Drake made their debut for the company on the April 27 episode of Collison, facing The Acclaimed in a tag team bout. Given the duo’s performance in the bout, many fans expect that the Grizzled Young Veterans will return to AEW sooner rather than later.

While speaking to Cultaholic for a new interview, James Drake first talked about how they had a great time in AEW and praised the company for celebrating wrestling.

“One of the things with deciding to leave WWE, it’s just not leave and go, well, we will see with happens. It’s always actually pushing forward, we want to be everywhere. We made it work with TNA, now we did AEW. It’s pretty much that we want to make sure when you think of us, you don’t think of us as a former so and so, you think of us as our own entity and our own brand and look at the decorated career that we’ll have. We had a great time there, great conversations with Tony. The one thing that I love about that place is that it celebrates wrestling. First and foremost, it celebrates wrestling. If you can go, you will get your roses. That’s literally something that me and Zack have really prided ourselves on for a very long time.”

Drake then went on to talk about height in wrestling and how promotions like AEW and TNA put the focus on the performer’s ability to wrestle.

“I am 5’10 on a good day. I can probably get wider, but I’m not gonna get taller. I really hate how for a very long time in wrestling, something as silly as your height can dictate your future. It’s very silly when you think about the bigger picture and look at someone like — they’ll dictate it on a lot of people in wrestling. Oh, but Shawn Micheals. Oh, but Daniel Bryan. You let them shine with their ability and there’s so much more out there that they are just so talented. They’re wrestlers, they’re not models. They’re not trying to be these superhuman like Marvel characters. But, shows like TNA or shows like AEW, people tune in to watch your craft and then they decide, do we like them, do we not like them. It’s purely based on your craft. It’s very refreshing to say the least.”

Zack Gibson went on to praise AEW’s tag team division, noting that all of the teams are given time to shine and show out.

“Obviously when we came out, we said we wanted to be everywhere, we wanted to work with all of the best talents that are out there. You can’t go on record saying that and not end up at least trying to do work with the AEW tag division because that division is stacked. There are rumors of other people coming in, but look at the actual division right now. Acclaimed, FTR, Young Bucks, the list just goes on and on and it’s just top tier tag team wrestling that is given time to shine and show out and do proper tag team wrestling on TV with some real purpose. It’s an exciting place to get our foot in the door. We were both buzzing to be there. The Acclaimed, great opponents for us.”

Fans can check out the current lineup for the May 8 edition of AEW Dynamite by clicking here.

Check out the team’s digital exclusive from their AEW debut by clicking here.

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