I want to take this time to comment about the rise and fall of a trio that showed much promise during their WWE run, but were cut short due to circumstances beyond wrestling and are now seemingly forgotten.
Wesley Blake, Steve Cutler and Jaxson Ryker were once known as the Forgotten Sons on NXT and briefly on Smackdown. They were slated for a red hot run in my opinion before they were disbanded over some of Ryker’s political statements last summer. As of this writing, Cutler was released by WWE for failing to disclose that he had previously contracted COVID19 while at work.
Now they were not the first trio faction to grace the halls of wrestling, as the Fabulous Freebirds set that standard. In more modern times, the Shield, Wyatt Family and New Day carried that legacy forward. The Forgotten Sons also had a unique backstory and common cause that allowed them to gel as a unit: they were floundering with directionless booking that eventually came together as a response to “being ignored”, hence the name and the tagline “Forgotten No More”.
Blake was a former NXT tag team champion alongside Buddy Murphy and were accompanied by now RAW women’s wrestler Alexa Bliss, while Ryker had a long stint on TNA as Gunner. Being actual former military service members, they also played off their past that were seemingly forgotten by society after they finished their tour of service, which depending on where you stand is an actual issue in the United States.
Despite having a gimmick as “American patriots”, they were a heel faction that together ran through a number of tag teams on NXT, culminating in reaching the finals of the Dusty Tag Team Classic, when they eventually lost to the team of Aleister Black and Ricochet. Their chemistry actually worked out quite well, with Blake and Cutler doing most of the tagging with Ryker as the additional third muscle stalking outside the ring to provide ample interference when needed.
While their Smackdown debut last year was promising despite doing so in front of an empty Performance Centre, the team’s run was quietly cut short after Ryker, a real life Republican and Donald Trump supporter, tweeted out his support for the former president in the wake of the George Floyd murder and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests that flared up across America.
The Forgotten Sons went from being close to Smackdown tag title contenders to being removed from television. Several of their own colleagues, such as Mustafa Ali and Sami Zayn, publicly chided Ryker and by the end of 2020, this trio would be literally forgotten as Ryker was moved over to RAW to be Elias’ bodyguard while Blake and Cutler were briefly as the “Knights of the Lone Wolf”, stooges for King Corbin until Cutler’s recent dismissal.
In retrospect, I don’t think the whole team should have been reprimanded as harshly as they were due to someone expressing their political views. Vince McMahon is a Trump supporter himself, and as of now seemingly hasn’t faced societal repercussions as a result of that. It’s not like Ryker was saying racist things or that Floyd deserved to die; being supportive of the President, as a veteran, is quite common and acceptable.
Unfortunately for Ryker, Trump isn’t like any other president in American history and any opinion expressed of him would certainly rile up opinions on either side, no matter what the subject matter was.
But if the Forgotten Sons were not removed from television because of the Ryker situation, they probably would have been by now. With the January 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol building, Blake, Cutler and Ryker looked like they were organizers for a pissing contest on Nancy Pelosi’s desk.
With corporate America taking action to punish those involved in the January 6 insurrection, having a team that came straight from central casting for the most alt-right, #MAGA looking group, despite us all knowing that wasn’t the basis for this team, it would not have been a good look for WWE to have them on their televised programming.
Any other time, there would be no problem. But this isn’t any other time, and that’s a damn shame for such promising talent in professional wrestling.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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