Dexter Lumis believes WWE could have gotten considerably more out of the Wyatt Sicks by allowing the faction to appear across all of the company’s brands rather than limiting the group to Raw and SmackDown.
Speaking on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet in his first extensive interview since WWE released the remaining members of the faction on April 24, Lumis discussed his frustration with how the Wyatt Sicks were ultimately utilized.
Lumis specifically envisioned members of the group appearing independently across WWE programming, including Joe Gacy returning to NXT and Nikki Storm, formerly Nikki Cross, competing in the women’s division while Lumis accompanied her.
“Like we could all, in our minds, the Wyatt Sicks should have been all over WWE programming. Shouldn’t have just been RAW or SmackDown. It should have been Gacy shows up in NXT and has a program with somebody. You know, Nikki shows up in a women’s match and I could valet for Nikki,” Lumis said.
The faction had been inactive for a significant period after a planned WrestleMania 42 match against The Judgment Day was scrapped. According to Lumis, the match appeared on the creative whiteboard shown during Netflix’s WWE: Unreal, but was eventually called off because of an unspecified health issue involving one member of the group.
Storm, who portrayed Abby the Witch in the Wyatt Sicks, had not competed on WWE television since September 2024 by the time of her release. The group’s final match took place against MFT on April 17, just one week before the remaining members were released.
For Lumis, his latest WWE departure also feels considerably different from his previous release in 2022.
“It does feel a little more final. You always hear, you know, the door could always still be open,” Lumis said.
Lumis also discussed WWE’s approach under TKO, saying that “the bottom line is the dollar.” He revealed that Paul Heyman told him late in his run that WWE needed to establish him as a singles wrestler, while Lumis had even pitched the idea of facing Brock Lesnar.
Storm has since returned to the identity she used before joining WWE in 2016. Just four days after her release, she filed trademarks for “Nikki Storm” and “The Best In The Galaxy.”
On May 26, Storm and her husband Damian Mackle, better known to wrestling fans as Big Damo and former WWE star Killian Dain, announced that they had purchased PROGRESS Wrestling with ambitions of establishing it as the world’s leading independent promotion.
Storm has also resumed her in-ring career.
“I’m coming back as a co-owner, and I’m also coming back as an independent professional wrestler,” Storm told PWPonderings last month. “I want to see the world again. I’m not the same person I was when I was 23. I want to do the next 10 years now and see the world again.”
She returned to action on July 23 for OTT in Ireland, teaming with Mackle, before winning the GAW Women’s Championship in Germany two days later. Storm then wrestled her first PROGRESS match in more than a decade on July 26, defeating Session Moth Martina at Chapter 196 in London’s Electric Ballroom.
Storm is currently scheduled to face Trent Seven at PROGRESS’ September 12 event in Bournemouth before appearing in Birmingham the following night. She will also challenge Gisele Shaw for the MLP Women’s Canadian Championship at Maple Leaf Pro’s sold-out Northern Rising event in Toronto on October 3.
During her decade with WWE, Storm became a three-time Women’s Tag Team Champion and won the 2021 Money in the Bank Ladder Match. Competing as Nikki A.S.H., she successfully cashed in the following night to defeat Charlotte Flair for the Raw Women’s Championship. She was also the final WWE 24/7 Champion before the title was retired.
