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Eli Drake is one of Impact Wrestling's top stars at the moment, even if he currently seems to have no discernible direction or purpose and doesn't look to be getting on the card for the upcoming Bound for Glory show.
That being said, the former Impact World Champion and the man with 'The Facts of Life' seems to be undergoing a natural slow-burn face turn with the Impact audience loving his Rock-like charisma during promos and catchphrases.
Luckily I was able to sit down with Eli Drake during his visit to Manchester, England for Wrestling MediaCon where he gave me 'The Facts of Life' surrounding his thoughts on the current state of Impact Wrestling, the rumors surrounding his potential exit from the company to WWE and whether or not Impact Wrestling attempting to tell more controversial storylines is a good thing or a bad thing.
You were at Wrestling MediaCon in the UK, what do you particularly enjoy about attending an event like that?
Drake: It's always cool you get a good idea of what the fans like, who they like, things like that. Whenever I see the line start to grow in front of me I think 'okay I must be doing something right'. Someday when that line disappears I'll be like 'oh, I [messed] it up somewhere'.
It's also a good gauge to see what shirts are selling. I can be like 'this one's good, this one's good' but beyond all that it's good to meet the fans, people who are watching the show, watching the product, who support what we do.
On that note Impact has a broadcasting deal in the UK, are you happy that you're reaching a bigger audience? You must be, right?
Drake: My biggest thing in wrestling is always, I want more eyes on whatever I'm doing. I feel like I'm putting on an amazing show, I feel like we as a group are putting on amazing shows but at the end of the day if nobody sees it then who cares. If a tree falls in the woods and nobodies there to hear it or however the saying goes, but you know what I mean, you want as many eyes on you as you can.
Beyond that then it helps more people to hear 'oh wait a minute, did you see Impact yesterday, did you see what happened there, oh great I'll watch what channel is it on, oh cool!' and then more people, more people, more people so yeah it's amazing."
Next: Eli Drake discusses almost leaving Impact Wrestling and how he feels about 'Sports Entertainment'
As already mentioned, there was a period of time when Eli Drake was the subject of intense speculation regarding an Impact Wrestling exit and a potential deal with WWE. The WWE were even allegedly interested in signing Eli Drake, whose deal with Impact was coming to its end.
Several months later and Drake is still with Impact Wrestling, although he's milling around the mid-card with no real direction at the moment issuing open challenges, having lost the Impact World Title to Austin Aries and the Impact World Tag Team Belts with Scott Steiner to LAX.
So, I wanted to get to the bottom of these rumors with the man himself, as well as discuss his current direction with Impact Wrestling
Obviously you were the Impact World Champion, but at the moment you seem to be in quite a good place in Impact where you're just kind of floating around doing whatever. What is your position within Impact at the moment?
Drake: I think there were a lot of questions as to what I was going to do, if I was going to stay, If I was going to go, that kind of thing. So at this point it's kind of just like alright, lets get him back in the mix somehow.
Because I think a lot of people, including the office here, thought I was leaving, I even at one point thought I was leaving. I was considering it, but then I had to do a real inventory of my life and figure out that I enjoy where I'm at right now, I enjoy the freedom, I enjoy the fact that I'm getting paid well to do what I love and I don't have to move to another part of the country, and I can still be on television every single week and I had the freedom to go and pursue other things where if I was at other places I wouldn't be able to do that.
You've got a thing going on with Trevor Lee and Caleb Konley at the moment, do you have any idea where that storyline might go, what might happen?
Drake: It's really hard to tell, I mean those guy are, it's funny that I sat back and watched Trevor Lee talk like me a couple of weeks ago, or at least kind of try to talk like me which was funny. Those are two young guys, two bright talents, man you never know where that can go.
And Trevor's like a crazy athlete I see him during the day before the shows just doing all kinds of crazy stunts and parkour looking stuff. To see what he's doing and to kind of come out of his shell. At first for the longest time, for the first couple of years, you never heard him talk, he didn't really do a whole lot other than just go out and do his X-Division Matches and I think he's starting to show a little more character now, and I think this particular storyline is giving him that opportunity to show himself a little more. Or at least himself as me.
Because your character is very charismatic, you are a character as Eli Drake with all the catchphrases like 'Dummy' do you think that helps bring out the personality from other people by allowing them to bounce off you?
Drake: I think so because it helps for me too. If I'm working against a guy who is just straight wood and he's not giving me anything it makes it really tough, because now I've got to really pull things out of him to work with, where like if I'm cutting a promo on him, if you have nothing, if you have no character, I have nothing to talk about.
So, I think it makes it easier because now I can give people catchphrases and lines that they can now spit back at me in some way. So it makes it really easy to work with me in that sense. Not to toot my own horn but Toot Toot Dummys!
Next: Eli Drake on Impact Wrestling courting controversial with storylines and how much freedom he's given by Impact Wrestling when cutting promos
Eli Drake is so good on the microphone that the popularity of his promo work with the crowd is slowly turning him face even though he's a heel character. This is partly to do with the fact he has a number of usable catchphrases the crowd can pick up on, but also because of his natural talent with a microphone in his hand.
I wanted to talk to Drake about his promo work and the process behind it. Did he come up with the ideas himself? And how much freedom was he allowed when he was stood in the ring cutting a promo?
When you came up with some of the catchphrases did you have any idea that they would catch on or was it more of a case of just throwing things out there and seeing if anything sticks.
Drake: Yeah I think it's kind of that, there was so many times when I just spent time either in the shower or in the car just like trying things out on myself like a psycho. I'd hear certain things or say certain things and be like 'damn, okay that would be good' and I always wanted to have an 'open' and a 'go home'.
I feel like as long as I have a way to open every time I talk and a way to go home every time I'm going to talk I can fill in the middle with anything else.
So do you improvise a lot when you're out there then?
Drake: Oh yeah, I can't tell you the amount of times I've walked out through the curtain and I've been like 'I don't know what I'm going to talk about but here we go'.
Specifically last year when they had the title on me, I was working so much, so there was no down time, because we'd tape three or four episodes a night, I think now they cut it down to two, but we were doing three or four episodes a time, I'd have to go out there and do four, five, six segments in one night so there's no down time so everything was improvised.
It was just like 'alright, I need to talk about this, cool, here we go' so there's no rehearsal, there's no nothing, it's just say it from the top, say it from the heart.
I think a lot of the time that feels more natural and comes across better on screen. Do you think that's one of the good things about working for Impact, in that they give you more creative freedom?
Drake: Hell yeah, Only because you're going to say things the best in your own words. If somebody tells me the point they want to get across I can that point across but I'll get it across in my words.
I can't get it across in your words, I can't say what I want to say the way you'd say it and you probably can't say what you want to say the way I'd say it. So when there's a room full of writers, and the funny thing is I've had people in the past try and write for me, and t's funny to read because they'll try to plug-in catchphrases and stuff and I'm like 'this is ridiculous, I can't even read this shit' so instead of reading that verbatim or using it, I'll probably take one or two things from it and just be like 'get rid of this, I'll fill in the blanks.'"
Next: Eli Drake reveals his thoughts on Impact Wrestling attempting more controversial storylines and signing former WWE guys like Chris Jericho and Neville?
Impact Wrestling is currently undergoing a company rebuild and is quickly gaining in buzz and popularity with the new in-ring product and production being universally praised by fans and wrestling journalists alike.
However, one of the more divisive elements of the new Impact Wrestling regime are the attempts to tell real and controversial stories that other wrestling companies tend to shy away from. I asked Eli Drake if he thought that this was a good direction for Impact Wrestling to go, as well as whether or not he wanted Chris Jericho or Neville to join Impact
One of the other things Impact seems to be doing at the moment is treading just on the right side of controversy, with their recent storylines including the hit and run, a barbed wire deathmatch do you think that this is a good thing or a bad thing?
Drake: I think it's a good thing to move forward, and the reason I think that is because at the end of the day, we're a TV show, it's a drama show, a comedy show, a variety show. In any other facet of TV, if you watch Breaking Bad, if you watch Goodfellas, if you watch any kind of entertainment like that there's going to be controversial figures and I don't know why wrestling is any different.
Everybody knows it's a work but at the same time people are like 'wait a minute, that's real, how can you have a racist character, or how can you run over a child.' and it's like, they just did that last night on ER. I'm probably 20 years behind on my television because I don't watch it anymore, but whatever the TV show, that's stuff's happening why is wrestling exempt from that, it doesn't make sense to me. We should absolutely be able to have crazy scenarios like that, and we should be able to have controversial characters, offensive characters, all of that stuff.
So, it's really strange, but I think that's also the weird pigeon hole that we've stuffed ourselves in, by not defining what we are. Which I think, maybe a long time ago, Vince tried to do by calling it Sports Entertainment but I think that's still kind of left in a weird grey area. Are we portraying ourselves still as legit shoot which I think is stupid in 2018 particularly, or are we trying to be an entertainment form that actually has some respect. Which I think is something like The Rock, or John Cena branching out, or Batista branching out can now bring to our business. And I think that if the business moves along with that, and we can put in more realistic storylines like that, I don't see what the problem is.
What are your thoughts on the possibility of maybe Chris Jericho or Neville/PAC appearing at Impact.
Drake: I've no idea, look that would be amazing. I think it's cool to bring in recognisable faces. At the same time I don't us to get too used to bringing in the new shiny toy. Because we have so much usable talent now. But that could also present some amazing opportunities for the current talent that we have now, as long as they don't keep it constricted."
I think it's something that maybe the company, in the past, may have gotten wrong?
Drake: Yes, that always rubbed me the wrong way. I never liked that. I thought it was us shooting ourselves in the foot and saying 'hey, yeah, we're second place, we're not as good as the other places, we're going to bring in a guy who's mid-card from somewhere else and put him immediately to the top of our card' We're damaging our own brand there, we're saying that we are less-than and I don't agree with that.
I think that we are as good, if not better than anybody else and in order to show that you need to showcase your talent and even if you're going to use those outside talent who do have that face recognition, then bring them in and do that but you don't put them above your current workhorses, the guys who are pulling the cart. I think we need to use the guys we currently have to the best of their ability and when its time to bring those guys in, bring them in the right way, so they're not hurting and shooting themselves in the foot."
What do you think about Eli Drakes comments on Impact Wrestling moving away from 'straight shoot' and guys like Chris Jericho and Neville not being used over existing talent? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below
