Duke Hudson is gone from WWE.
In one of the most surprising stories coming out of the weekend, it was rumored that NXT star Duke Hudson was released from the company. In fact, the news reports stated that Hudson was quietly released sometime in January.
Hudson had been in WWE for six years. The former Chase U member was actually on the main roster as Brendan Vink. He was associated with MVP for a while and he even got a victory over Ricochet and Cedric Alexander, but it wouldn’t take long for the company to send him back down to NXT.
Vink’s name was changed to Duke Hudson and The Chase U gimmick is what got him over in the developmental brand. Him and Andre Chase did win the NXT Tag Team titles in 2023, but the duo only kept the belts for 21 days. One year later, Chase U was forced to disband following Andre’s loss to Ridge Holland. Hudson had been kept off of television until his release.
The 35-year-old confirmed the reports of his release through a fun and creative video on social media.
Why did WWE opt to release Duke Hudson? There hasn’t been a confirmed reason, but Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer made it clear that Triple H just didn’t see any potential from the former WWE star on the main roster.
“(Paul) Levesque is the one who makes the calls and for whatever reason he didn’t see Duke as a main roster guy. So at some point when you’re 34 and you don’t see him as a main roster guy and he’d been there for six years it’s kind of like that’s the way it works.”
As of this moment, there’s no word on what the future holds for the former Duke Hudson. He’s likely under WWE’s non-compete clause, though that’s just pure speculation on my end.
There was a point where Hudson was considered to be a future main event star, hence the pairing with MVP when he joined the main roster. However, Hudson is 6’5, so it’s not surprising that Vince McMahon took a liking to the former WWE star so quickly. While it’s strange that Triple H didn’t try to put the Chase U gimmick on the main roster, officials probably determined that the gimmick wouldn’t work on the red or blue brand.