G.Y.V. made their AEW debuts on Collision.
For the last week of April 2024, AEW’s programming emanated from Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida. On the 4/27 edition of Collision, The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) clashed with the debuting Grizzled Young Veterans (Zack Gibson & James Drake).
Drake and Gibson opened up about their appearance while chatting with Tom Campbell of Cultaholic Wrestling. Drake said they had a great time and great conversation with AEW President Tony Khan.
Gibson chimed in and stated that when they became free agents, they said they wanted to be everywhere and work with the best. He feels they cannot say that and not at least attempt to work with AEW’s tag team division. He called Caster and Bowens great opponents.
Drake: We had a great time there, great conversation with Tony (Khan at AEW Collision). The one thing that I love about that place is it celebrates wrestling. So, first and foremost, it celebrates wrestling. If you can go, you will get your roses. That’s kind of it and that’s literally something that me and Zack have really prided ourselves on for a very long time. I am 5’10 on a good day. I could probably get wider but I’m not gonna get taller and I really, really hate how for a very long time in wrestling, something as, you know, silly as your height can dictate your future. It’s very silly when you can think about the bigger picture… Shows like a TNA or shows like an AEW, people tune in to watch your craft and then they decide, do we like them? Do we not like them? And then it’s purely based on your craft… It’s very refreshing, to say the least.
Gibson: Obviously, when we came out, we said that we wanted to be everywhere, we wanted to work with all of the best talents that are out there and you can’t go on record of saying that and then not end up at least trying to do work with the AEW tag division because that division is stacked. There’s rumors of other people coming in but, regardless of looking at who potentially could be in, just look at the actual active division right now. With like, Acclaimed, FTR, Young Bucks. The list just goes on and on and on and it’s just top-tier tag team wrestling who are given time to shine and actually show out and do proper tag team wrestling on TV with some real purpose. So it’s just such an exciting place to get a foot in there. We were both buzzing to be there. The Acclaimed were great opponents for us. The crowd was hot on the night, crowd was hot on the internet kind of reacting to everything so, everything’s coming up Milhouse.
The duo are behind the new Burning Heart Pro Wrestling promotion in the UK. The first event is taking place on June 21st in Liverpool.
Gibson said the brand does not just belong to him and James Drake. There are others who are invested financially and/or emotionally. He added that George Iceman of TNA and Rickey Shane Page are driving forces behind it. The promotion is still in its infancy stage and there have been no definitive roles assigned as of the podcast recording.
Gibson: These conversations (to launch a wrestling promotion) have been had for years and for years, down the line, said in different ways and then sort of intensified over the last couple of months. One of the things that we will have to say is it’s not just mine and James’ brand. Obviously, we did the initial promo and then our inboxes just got swamped, as they do. I don’t begrudge anyone for messaging. We are wearing two hats at the moment so we are in that hustle, pushing our tag team and pushing our careers on one side and then we’ve just started wearing this new hat working with Burning Heart and now we’re getting messages from people trying to hustle. I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Leave us alone’ (he laughed). But, it’s all part of it. We can’t ever begrudge someone for that. But these conversations, you’ve seen the sort of company line that was put out that it’s ran by a committee of top international sort of — the main guys behind the scenes. There’s a fella called Rickey Shane Page who a lot of people will know. He’s another driving force behind this. There’s a fella called George. I only know him as The Iceman (he laughed)… But it goes even beyond that, because there’s so many people who are invested in this project. Some people are financially invested, other people are just emotionally invested. But what that’s created is just a full team of people who are just bouncing ideas, making suggestions. People who are passionate about it. Like I say, who have no financial input whatsoever, but just want to see it succeed and so I’m coming in being like, ‘Well I can do this favor for you’ or, ‘I can call in this thing for you’ or, ‘How about we do this? This would be great for publicity.’ So it’s great to see it, it’s rewarding for us to know how many people trust us. For how many people have messaged us and said, ‘Now that I know your name has been attached to it, I wanna be a part of it.’ Same thing has happened to Rickey Shane Page. He has so much good faith over in the States because everyone backstage loves him that so many people reach out and say, ‘If you’re involved, I need to be involved’ and that’s the kind of project — that is the feel of this thing. We want it to actually be pro wrestling sort of ran by the people who have all had good and bad experiences so that we can all rely on them and say, well when this happened to me, I liked it so let’s do more of that. But people treated me this way backstage, that’s how we’re gonna treat them when we bring them into our locker room. Or, I didn’t like it when they did this with my time or when they did this with my investment so, we’re not gonna do that to someone else. It’s years, 20 years of experience from us, 20 years of experience from Rickey Shane Page, years of experience from promoting from George. He’s a Canadian who used to run in Canada, and all of these experiences is gonna make the backbone of a company that’s gonna treat our wrestlers and our fans right.
We are still in our infancy. That’s perhaps the better way to say this. We haven’t got strictly defined roles just yet. That’s not an issue at this point, which is what I’m trying to get out of it. But I’m just saying, the company is still in its infancy so, we are taking on some of the booking but we’re not the booker. We’re not the head honcho, we’re not the decision-maker. Generally speaking, if anyone does want to reach out for bookings or if people wanna reach out with inquiries, the best place to go is the catch-all email address, go through the website and then a load of us will get passed through until it lands on the right person’s desk, and then once we finally set in stone what everyone’s role is, everyone will then know because as soon as we get that hashed out, you’ll see a public post of this is what this person’s role now is, this is what this person’s role now is. But right now, it’s just a jiggle, exciting cooking pot of everyone jumping in and having fun. Creating an environment for wrestlers and fans alike to just get back to the thing we all love which is just pro wrestling done right.
Further speaking on the subject, James Drake explained the thought process behind launching Burning Heart. He feels the U.K. independent scene is a rebuilding situation.
Drake: I did see there was a big gap in the market for — I don’t know. It’s not like for everyone and I don’t mean it for everyone because I could list off a load of people that take it so seriously and wanna kind of work outside the box essentially and really push the boundaries. For example, like British Strong Style did, we did, Mark Andrews did. I can see a lot of people trying to do that, but at the same time, I can see a lot of people that really just kind of treat it as a weekend thing and I would love more people on the U.K. scene to really — it happened before. It can happen again. We just need to make sure more people can really push the boundaries and I do think that’s something that Burning Heart Pro, it’s one of the things we’re really trying to do. We’re trying to essentially grab the U.K. scene by the neck essentially and you know, reawaken things that were kind of dormant. People have not moved on. There’s a lot of people that are very passionate about professional wrestling. You’ve got All In, Wembley. You’ve got Clash at the Castle. These people don’t get flown in. They’re already living there, there’s a huge wrestling scene. We just need more U.K. promotions to really think beyond what they’re doing at the moment and try to capitalize on that. You can see, RevPro are doing a big show now on the day before All In and that’s a huge, a huge project to take on board. But it’s not just because they wanna do it. It’s because they wanna try and expand the brand and expand the scene. So, I do see the U.K. scene in a rebuilding situation right now. I do think a lot of it is on the way up. I just hope that more and more talent can see the possibilities that are in front of them and can also try and push forward as well.
In a separate media appearance, Grizzled Young Veterans did a deep dive into their exits from WWE and what led up to that point. That can be read here on the POST Wrestling site.
The duo are the reigning RevPro Undisputed British Tag Team Champions.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Cultaholic Wrestling with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
