Report: NXT Superstar Velveteen Dream Has Been Released by WWE

There’s a big name from the WWE NXT brand that has been let go. His name is Velveteen Dream, who is 25 years old. The report comes from PWInsider and Fightful also reported it shortly after. It has also been confirmed by the Wrestling Observer. WWE has not issued a statement saying that Dream has been released, but that doesn’t mean it’s false. It’s just in some cases, WWE doesn’t announce the names of people that are released.

During the “Speaking Out” movement that occurred in the wrestling business last April, Dream was accused of sending explicit photos to underage boys. Here’s what Fightful wrote about it last year:

Velveteen Dream was accused of sending inappropriate photos to minors. The alleged victim claimed that Dream sent the photos via Instagram DM and showed proof with the photo. The alleged victim claimed to be 17 years old and that his/her friends, who also allegedly received inappropriate DMs, were 15 and 16. The alleged victim said evidence that it is Dream included “his phone number is Washington area code, his voice in the calls was accurate, it was off of his verified Instagram account and the picture he sent is believable.”

After the allegations were posted, Dream commented: “Be assured I did not communicate inappropriately with anyone. A private photo of mine was shared without my consent or knowledge and I am working with a third party to look into this matter.”

As far as we know, there wasn’t any proof provided by Dream to prove that the allegations were false.

When Paul “Triple H” Levesque was asked about allegations against Velveteen Dream by CBS Sports last year, he said this:

“You know, in this day today, accusations are made and you take them all very seriously. You look into them the best you can, and you find out what is there and what isn’t. In this situation, [Clark] was also involved in a car accident. That’s what took him off TV. In the moment, all this other stuff happens and you look into it and you find that there is a situation that people bring to everyone’s attention, you look into it and find that it is what it is and there’s nothing there. Everything that we have done, we are comfortable with him continuing to do what he does and everything else. But he had a car accident. It stemmed down to people thought we removed him from TV for different reasons. We didn’t. He was in a car accident. Once he was medically cleared to be able to return to the ring from his car accident, we continued forward the way we did. We looked into what was there and we didn’t find anything.”

The last match that Velveteen Dream had in NXT was on December 23, 2020. That means he was not used at all this year.

If you were watching the last WWE Tough Enough season in 2015 you would remember him as a contestant on that show using his real name Patrick Clark. Although he didn’t win the men’s Tough Enough contract, he was impressive enough to get a WWE deal. During his NXT run, he won the NXT North American Title in 2019 and held the title for 231 days. Dream was also in NXT Title feuds and certainly looked like a guy that was ready for Raw or Smackdown based on his unique character as well as his talent in the ring.

Instead of living up to his potential in WWE, he is gone now.

TJR Thoughts: In terms of talent, there is no question that Velveteen Dream could have been a major player in WWE. If you would have asked me at any point in the last three years, pick one guy to main event the most WWE shows during the 2020 decade, I would have said Velveteen Dream. However, what he allegedly did was despicable and any time NXT tried to use him in the last year, they received a lot of backlash from fans and with good reason. It’s understandable why WWE fired him although there are still going to be angry people complaining that it took WWE so long to fire him. They could have done it a lot sooner.

Velveteen Dream wasn’t the only NXT name released this week. Other NXT names that were released yesterday include:

Kavita Devi

Jessamyn Duke

Ezra Judge

Skyler Story

Vanessa Borne

Alexander Wolfe – He noted on Twitter that his WWE deal was up in June, so he could have been leaving anyway.

Referee Drake Wuertz

Referee Jake Clemons

The wrestlers and referees were told it was budget cuts, which is another way of saying “we don’t think we need you anymore.”

The interesting name there is Drake Wuertz, who apparently upset a lot of people for believing in some crazy conspiracy theories, not believing in some of WWE’s masking rules and other things that show he was a different kind of guy.

TJR Thoughts: There are no big names there, but it sucks when people lose their job. Frankly, I’m not sure if anybody is going to notice Wuertz is gone anyway. The NXT referees do a fantastic job and they’ll be just fine without crazy conspiracy guy Wuertz.

Here is Velveteen Dream’s last match in WWE. And yes, that is Wuertz as the referee.