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Eli Drake, formerly known as Ricker in WWE, was released from Vince McMahon's company back in 2014. However, in a recent interview with WhatCulture, Drake revealed that he was approached by WWE to re-sign with the company in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
At the time, Drake was signed with Impact wrestling and was enjoying great success in the company. He confirmed that he rejected WWE's offer due to the financial reasons but later, he realised that it was a 'bad idea'.
Talking about the three separate offers, Drake said, "They made an offer to me in 2016, 2017, and 2018. In 2016, I didn't take it because Impact was giving me a big raise. I'd never seen money like they were giving me, and the money that WWE were offering me was very low. It was not great, so I was like, 'Well, okay, I'll take a year at this [Impact] money.' I checked them out a year later, and it was the same offer and I had a raise with Impact again."
"So 2018, they came to me one more time, exact same offer. In my head, I thought, 'You know what, screw it. I'll take the cut, I'll take the bet on myself that it's going to quickly go up.' Just personal things happened in my life that caused me to stay where I was and not move across the country. I ended up staying here. I wasn't hurting for money, I was making good money in Impact, so if I stayed for another year it wasn't a big deal. But professionally, it was just a bad idea."
Eli Drake on his WWE aspirations
Currently, Eli Drake is signed with NWA and is one-half of the Tag Team Champions in the promotion.
During the interview, Eli Drake confirmed that his lifestyle would have been entirely different if he had gone to the WWE Performance Cent even when they paid less. But it was the past experience with the company that left him sceptical about the decision about joining WWE. Having said that, Drake hasn't completely ruled out his aspirations with respect to gaining a WrestleMania opportunity and performing at the Grandest Stage of Them All.
The idea of just going to the PC and making whatever money, it would've been a big lifestyle change, for one. But at the same time, I also recognise the system's so different to when I was there before. When I was there before, I had no advocates, I had nobody on my side. Now, I've got so many people on the inside, working there, who would probably vouch for me, push for me to move forward. Whereas before, I just had that big roadblock of Bill DeMott."
"Would I like to be on that huge stage of WrestleMania? Yeah, probably. But I just also talk to some of the guys who are there, I look at the way the climate is, and I just don't know."
