Ridge Holland 'stepping away' from WWE NXT

Ridge Holland is "stepping away" from WWE NXT 'indefinitely" following an angle on Tuesday's NXT show. 

The unique storyline with Holland suffering a crisis in confidence after injuring Big E for real and causing a kayfabe injury to Ilja Dragunov in a similar fashion culminated on Tuesday's WWE NXT episode with Holland announcing that he is stepping away from the ring indefinitely. 

Holland's WWE.com profile has been moved to the alumni section to sell the retirement angle. 

Big E suffered a broken neck in a match with Holland on the March 11, 2022 SmackDown after taking an overhead belly-to-belly throw on the floor. 

Holland continued with The Brawling Brutes team for another year-plus following the incident, then seemingly left the Brutes group last November. He returned to NXT last December for a match with Dragunov where the kayfabe injury took place. 

In recent weeks, Holland has been feuding with the returning Shawn Spears, with Spears laying out Holland with a chair shot in his NXT return, then defeating Holland in a match on last week's episode.

Last Tuesday, Holland posted a video teasing the retirement angle that unfolded on this week's show, saying: 

It’s pretty obvious that this effort to prove myself and redeem myself is not going the way that I hoped. The result last week against Shawn Spears just proves that. I need to be honest with myself. So I’m just gonna do what everyone wants me to do.