Kairo D. Rain aka Jasper Troy Details the Frustration That Led to His WWE Release (Exclusive)

After winning WWE LFG Season 1 in 2025, Jasper Troy was on top of the world and quickly made his way to the NXT brand. Upon his debut, Troy was immediately thrown into the deep end and challenged then-NXT Champion Oba Femi.

Despite coming up short in that title match, Troy would go on to win the WWE Speed Championship and face off with some of the best on the NXT brand.

However, Jasper Troy was released from WWE on September 4th as part of a series of roster cuts. This came as a surprise to many fans, considering Troy's position on NXT since his debut.

Since his release, Troy, now known as Kairo D. Rain, has not rested on his laurels and has been working to set himself up for success outside of the WWE banner.

DOMINATION.

@jaspertroywwe ain't one to mess with! 😲#WWENXT pic.twitter.com/9dXkVtIZS6
— WWE (@WWE) May 28, 2025

"I kind of just hit the ground running, reaching out to different promoters, bookers, seeing what's out there, trying to establish a pipeline with people, grow interest, show that I definitely want to keep working," Kairo D. Rain told The Takedown On SI.

"For me, I think the biggest challenge is showing people that, of course, I want to still wrestle and that you know, I'm not trying to out-price myself, but just be at a comfortable rate that I feel like I'm worth and just built off of that moving forward."

Following his initial success in NXT, Rain was no longer being prominently featured on a consistent basis, which led him to have doubts.

"I mean, the whole time I was focused on getting better because I knew like I don't want LFG to be my biggest achievement," Kairo stated. "I felt like I had so much more to accomplish and I also knew the strides that I had to make."

"Not saying it put me on a pedestal or put me on a plateau that I couldn't overcome, but I can say probably around February, I started getting a little bit competitive, especially considering Stand & Deliver was coming up and after I want to say August, so I had debuted, had been on TV for about three months. After August, I felt like everything I do has to put me in a position to be on that Stand & Deliver card and I felt like I was gearing up for that."

Keeping his eye on the prize, the former Jasper Troy continued to maintain a positive mentality with his ultimate goal of Stand & Deliver in mind.

"So, it's a grind," Rain explained. "You definitely gotta have that mentality and you gotta have a goal, like what are you working toward? And for me, everything was focused towards getting on that Stand & Deliver card."

"I'm not gonna sugarcoat it that the months after Great American Bash (2025) that I had with Je'Von (Evans), not being on those PLEs, like the thumb in my head was going off, but then the professional in me was like, 'stay in it, stay in it, like don't get caught up on what's not going your way, just stay focused on what you control and where you can go."

Staying focused on getting better, Kairo D. Rain was given guidance by management to continue to stay patient and his time would come.

"You know, there was tons of conversations that I would have, tons of questions I would ask and just being told, 'stay patient, stay patient,' and you know, I'm trustworthy, so I'm always gonna trust what I'm being told from the higher-ups and I just listened," Rain said.

Turnover on the NXT roster caused doubts to arise

However, the start of 2026 saw a lot of change and turnover on the NXT roster, leading to some frustration for Kairo D. Rain.

As stars like Oba Femi, Trick Williams and Je'Von Evans were called to Raw and SmackDown, Kairo saw his spot on the NXT roster stay the same, which caused him some anger and also added motivation.

"Now February comes, I start noticing certain things going on, situations and I'm starting to get in my head and frustrated, but I felt like it was natural because I don't take days off," Rain said. "I don't make excuses. I just go as hard as I can every day and I fight and I battle through adversity and bumps and bruises and sprains."

"So at a certain point, I started getting upset, getting frustrated, but I still kept showing up with the same attitude and staying in it and things started getting better on a performance level. I felt like I was hitting a groove, but there's something about consistency and availability with the work."

Months passed and the former Jasper Troy saw his reps decreasing, which caused his work rate to suffer as a result, according to him.

"I felt like, ok I'm having matches, but then I go a month with no work and so now, I got to start the whole engine again as I'm working my way up this hill and getting this momentum back and feeling out the grooves in the ring," Kairo elaborated.

"There's certain things that's like it's hard to overcome when you go these long hiatuses of time between matches on TV and matches in the ring; it's hard to stay in that groove. I think that's just what it was. My work rate started decreasing, and I just- you can't outwork reps, whether that's house shows, dark matches, you know, Evolve shows."

Just a few months later, a feeling started to overwhelm Kairo D. Rain as he started to see the writing on the wall in many ways.

"So by the end of May, I started just having this feeling in my stomach," Rain stated. "My stomach just started turning, bro, like I'm just gonna be honest. I was not in a good mood; I was very, just angry. I was like, 'I just don't understand.' I am literally up all hours of the night thinking, 'What is happening? How is my situation like this?"

"Again, like I said, I still kept coming in here with the same mentality and that's why I think my maturity had just grown exponentially because I knew what I wanted to do, but what I couldn't afford to give in to. I couldn't afford it, so I just kept telling myself, like, 'bro, you know what I'm saying, a bump in the road can't stop you."

The doubt in his spot on WWE NXT started to creep into Rain's head more and more, creating a dark cloud that was looming over him, and caused a bit of relief when he finally got the call for his release from the company in September.

"I started, I guess the doubt finally crept in and it felt like no matter what I do, I feel like what's about to happen is gonna happen," Kairo said. "The moment when I was just starting to keep my head, it happened and when I got that call, I felt, like, relieved in a sense of, like, ok, I don't have this dark cloud roaming over my head anymore."

"I'm not worried about it anymore because after a certain point, after four years, like, you didn't mature to a level where you know it's gonna happen eventually to you or to your friends."

Following his WWE release, the LFG Season One winner started to feel like this wasn't the right fit for him at this point in his career.

"At that point, I realized, like, ok, maybe this isn't the right fit for me," Rain explained some advice he received. "When I started hearing people say, like, just because you couldn't succeed here, or maybe something you were doing isn't working here, doesn't mean it doesn't work in general."

"So I figured, like, look, bro, I'm not the first person to get cut, and as soon as I realized that part, that how many people have gotten cut or gotten released and came back and overachieved."

Who is Jasper Troy?

Let him tell you himself... 👀

@jaspertroywwe #WWENXT pic.twitter.com/K2eYQCVurz
— WWE (@WWE) May 28, 2025

Kairo went on to explain his mentality moving forward is not to prove anyone wrong, but just to continue to prove that he is exactly what he has always said he is.

"For me, it's not about proving people wrong," Rain stated. "Like, I'm not about to go out here and every town I hit, make it known you made a mistake, no. I'm going to all these towns proving I'm exactly who I said I am from day one, ok, I'm a future great."

"Just because I didn't achieve the normal status quo of winning a show like that is supposed to give off that doesn't mean when I show up in Leasburg, Missouri, or upstate New York, or the West Coast in LA, that I'm still not the number one future great. I got 30, 40 years to prove my status in this business, so I think a lot of that is just pride and ego and just the want to prove what I'm capable of."

On what his goals are for the foreseeable future following his release, Rain is looking to capture a fanbase outside of WWE by offering the smash-mouth style that helped him make a name for himself on LFG and NXT.

"I want to, I definitely want to capture the audiences across the world. I want to build that fandom, build a following," the former WWE Speed Champion elaborated. "The Kairo D. Rain persona is- we're not changing; we're not reinventing the wheel. People are gonna get smash mouth. Ok, it's gonna physical, it's gonna be aggressive."

"I'm not getting in the ring to challenge any opponent on the indies and look like I'm wrestling them, no. Whatever show I get booked on, whatever company I work with, you're booking Kairo D. Rain, and my opponent is wrestling me, and that's how we're gonna go, so on and so forth."

Now that he has departed WWE, Kairo D. Rain is looking to get his name on the marquee and put himself in a position where he can be placed on any card for any promotion around the world.

"Just be successful and hopefully get to compete with some of the top names in the industry because those are the ones I'm chasing after. I want those marquee matches. I definitely want to get my name on those marquee promotions in the industry and just build a foundation for the people that I'm in charge of taking care of."

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