Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: NXT, Released, velveteen dream, wrestling, wwe

Velveteen Dream Has Officially Been Released By WWE

Published Thu, 20 May 2021 17:48:10 -0500

The dream is over (sorry, I couldn't help myself). As was first reported by Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com, WWE has released former NXT star Velveteen Dream. This news comes one day after reported budget cuts led to the releases of numerous NXT talents yesterday, though many feel Velveteen Dream's release from the company is long overdue, as he has been accused of numerous counts of online sexual harassment of minors.

Velveteen Dream Has Been Released By WWE — NXT Star Velveteen Dream has been released, courtesy of WWE.

Velveteen Dream, real name Patrick Clark Jr., had been marked by lots of fans and insiders as a major up-and-coming talent to watch. Coming out of Washington, D.C., WWE fans first got a look at him when he appeared on the 2015 season of WWE Tough Enough. He did not win the competition, but he was a standout on the show and WWE signed him to a developmental deal, which sent him to their Performance Center and eventually to NXT. There he debuted as Velveteen Dream, an attention-absorbing, gender-challenging character that seemed like he was personally designed by the late, great rockstar Prince.

Velveteen Dream was an immediate hit with fans and due to his jaw-dropping presentation, excellent matches, and standout promos, and character work, everyone thought they were looking at the early days of a potential megastar for WWE. This all hit a wall hard in April of 2020, when posts on Reddit displayed inappropriate messages, photos, and audio recordings that Velveteen Dream had sent to underage boys on Instagram. In a now-deleted post on his Twitter account, he denied the accusations.

"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."

WWE claimed they looked into the matter and found nothing incriminating, with Triple H saying the following to CBS Sports in August of 2020 when asked about the accusations:

"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."

For whatever reason, Velveteen Dream did not appear on NXT as frequently and every time he did, it was met with instant backlash on social media. His last NXT appearance was this past December in a match against Adam Cole.

After that, he wasn't seen at NXT tapings or at the Performance Center in quite some time, though he had started appearing at the Performance Center again over the past several weeks for open ring workouts, which made some of the trainees and his peers uncomfortable and worried that he could soon become a trainer there.

https://twitter.com/SeanRossSapp/status/1395485521011519491

According to Dave Meltzer, he was backstage at the WWE Raw taping last week, but it was unknown why. It's possible now in hindsight that it was to work out a release from his contract with the company.

It's likely this is the end of Velveteen Dream's wrestling career, as the things he's accused of aren't easy to shake, especially with how on top of it online fans have been. For a guy who was once tagged as a future superstar, this is a big fall from grace.

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