Ricky Smokes
American male professional wrestler (born 2000)
Ricky Smokes (born April 28, 2000) is an American professional wrestler signed to WWE, where he performs on the NXT brand and is one-half of the Swipe Right tag team with Brad Baylor and one-third of The Vanity Project stable. Smokes and Baylor are the reigning NXT Tag Team Champions in their second reign as a team and individually.
01Professional wrestling career
American independent circuit (2019-2026)
Smokes made his professional wrestling debut at a house show promoted by the Wrestling Has A Tomorrow promotion on May 26, 2019, where he competed in a Rumble For Tomorrow Match won by Bullet Joe, which also involved various opponents such as Charles Mason, Jessicka Havok, Jimmy Lloyd and others.
Smokes competed in Game Changer Wrestling (GCW)'s 2025 Joey Janela's Spring Break, where he wrestled in the traditional Clusterfuck Battle Royal, bout won by Brodie Lee Jr. .
Smokes competed in the elimination stages of the inaugural WWE ID Championship tournament where he fell short to Sean Legacy in the first rounds disputed during a Future Stars Of Wrestling house show from April 18, 2025.
WWE (2025-present)
On the March 5, 2025 episode of Evolve, Smokes teamed up with Brad Baylor as "Swipe Right" alongside Jackson Drake, falling short to Jack Cartwheel, Sean Legacy and Cappuccino Jones in a six-man tag team match in Evolve's first main event after its revival in WWE. On the April 8 episode of NXT, Swipe Right wrestled their NXT debut match, where they lost to NXT Tag Team Champions Nathan Frazer and Axiom in a tag team match. In the same month, Swipe Right and Drake formed The Vanity Project stable with Bryce Donovan and Zayda Steel.
On January 13, 2026 episode of NXT, The Vanity Project (except Donovan and Steel, who had left WWE) were promoted to the NXT brand. On the following week, Baylor and Smokes defeated Chase University (Kale Dixon and Uriah Connors) in their first match as part of the NXT roster. On the February 24 episode of NXT, Baylor and Smokes defeated NXT Tag Team Champions DarkState (Osiris Griffin and Saquon Shugars) to win the titles after interference from Tony D'Angelo. At NXT Stand & Deliver on April 4, 2026, Smokes and Baylor were successful in their first defense of the titles against Los Americanos (Bravo Americano and Rayo Americano) (with El Grande Americano).
02Championships and accomplishments
- Alpha-1 Wrestling
- A1 Tag Team Championship (1 time), with Brad Baylor
- Beyond Wrestling
- Wrestling Open Tag Team Championship (1 time), with Brad Baylor
- Chaotic Wrestling
- Northeast Championship Wrestling
- NCW Tag Team Championship (1 time), with Charlie Cashew
- Northeast Wrestling
- NEW Tag Team Championship (1 time), with Brad Baylor
- WWE
- NXT Tag Team Championship (2 times, current), with Brad Baylor
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Ricky Smokes”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Ricky Smokes (cropped).jpg by ZekeDane, Public domain
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