In January 2017, Reid participated in the WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament to crown the inaugural WWE United Kingdom Champion under the name James Drake, losing to Joseph Conners in the first round.
On January 12, 2019, Drake and Zack Gibson defeated Moustache Mountain in a tournament final at NXT UK's debut TakeOver event in Blackpool, to become the inaugural NXT UK Tag Team Champions. They would hold the titles for much of the year before losing them at NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff in August to Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster in a triple threat tag match also involving Gallus. On the September 11 episode of NXT UK, Grizzled Young Veterans unsuccessfully challenged Andrews and Webster in a rematch. On the November 7 episode of NXT UK, during the Grizzled Young Veterans match against Andrews and Webster, Gallus and Imperium interfered. On the November 28 episode of NXT UK, Grizzled Young Veterans and Andrews and Webster interfered during Gallus' title match against Imperium, and Grizzled Young Veterans took the titles and ran but the general managers came and announced that Gallus would defend their titles at NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool II against Grizzled Young Veterans, Andrews and Webster and Imperium for the titles in a ladder match. At the event, Grizzled Young Veterans lost the match. Grizzled Young Veterans also competed in the 2020 Dusty Rhodes Classic, where 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. They made it to the finals on January 29, 2020, where they lost to The Broserweights (Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne).
On the July 19, 2022 edition of NXT, Drake and Gibson were revealed as Joe Gacy's Dyad, being renamed to Jagger Reid and Rip Fowler, respectively.