Former WWE Champion Returns To WWE After 4 Years Away From Wrestling

WWE has reportedly brought Eric Young back, but his in-ring future remains uncertain.© NDTV Library

Eric Young is back in WWE, and this time he's working behind the scenes. The former TNA World Champion has been a producer for NXT since July 2026, according to Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com. The move came after his TNA contract expired in July. Young has bounced between WWE and TNA Wrestling for years, and now he's coming in as a producer instead of a performer. Fightful Select also reported that he has a strong relationship with WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H, who had made it clear Young would have a job waiting if he wanted to return.

Eric Young's WWE Return Comes Months After His Latest Departure From TNA

Young first signed with WWE in 2016 and was sent to NXT, which Triple H was running at the time. He led the group Sanity there and won the NXT Tag Team Championship with it. 

The group later got called up to the main roster, and Young was drafted to Raw in April 2019. A year after that, in April 2020, he was released in WWE's first round of pandemic cuts.

He went back to TNA, which was still called Impact Wrestling then, and returned at Slammiversary 2020. 

His second World Championship came on September 1 episode of Impact. In 2022 he rejoined WWE, but he never showed up on television and was back in TNA by 2023. He's 46 now, and that TNA run ended with the contract expiring in July.

Triple H's Longstanding Relationship With Eric Young Played a Role in His WWE Return

Triple H is the main link in all this. Fightful Select reported that the two “have long maintained a great relationship.” Young has talked about it himself too. In a 2022 interview with Jim Alexander of Reel Talker, he said the producing he did on the main roster was a favor to Triple H. 

He also said his time in WWE would have been different than it was if Triple H had been running creative back then. His words were “I would do anything for him.” Triple H took over WWE creative in July 2022 after Vince McMahon's resignation, the same year Young first came back.

A producer in WWE works as a road agent, which means helping wrestlers put their matches together backstage. That's the job Young has with NXT today, and honestly it fits with the producing he did before.

As for the ring, Mike Johnson didn't have an answer. He wrote: “I don't know if he will wrestle.” For now, the producer role with NXT is the part that's been reported.