[4] In 2017, Drake and Zack Gibson formed a villainous tag team called Grizzled Young Veterans in Progress Wrestling.

Grizzled Young Veterans defeated Chris Brookes and Kid Lykos of CCK to become the Progress tag team champions.

[9] Grizzled Young Veterans would defend their titles against, Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch, Amir Jordan and Kenny Willams, & Moustache Mountain before losing it to Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster at NXT UK Takeover: Cardiff in a triple-threat tag team also involving Gallus.

Grizzled Young Veterans also competed in the 2020 Dusty Rhodes Classic and they defeated Kushida and Alex Shelley in the quarterfinals and NXT Tag Team Champions the Undisputed Era in the semifinals due to a distraction by Imperium.

On the July 19, 2022 edition of NXT, him and Zack Gibson were revealed as Joe Gacy's Dyad, being renamed to Jagger Reid and Rip Fowler, respectively.

[11] The following day, they made their first independent appearance since being released at Deadlock Pro-Wrestling's Live 3 event where they answered an open challenge set by DPW's tag team champions, The Workhorsemen.