WWE reportedly released Duke Hudson last month. The wrestler, who had spent the majority of his tenure with the company in NXT, was removed from the internal roster pages in mid-January.

Hudson has not appeared on television in some time, with his last match occurring at a house show in November. This was during the ongoing Chase U storyline, in which he played a key role alongside Ridge Holland. In that storyline, Hudson was defeated by Holland, resulting in the disbandment of Chase U.

Hudson first gained attention in NXT during the 2021 Breakout Tournament, where he portrayed an expert poker player. However, it wasn’t until he joined Chase U that he found more significant success, even capturing the NXT tag team titles alongside Andre Chase.

UPDATE:

Dave Meltzer has now disclosed that Triple H was responsible for the decision during a recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio.

Meltzer stated that Triple H did not view the former Chase U member as main roster material, offering the following explanation:

“Levesque (Triple H)  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.”