Eli Drake was a recent guest on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, and spoke about how he was booked in the beginning of the year compared to his more recent feuds. Drake says he had a decision to make last year about returning to IMPACT or not, and was disappointed in how things started under his new deal after thinking he might be more appreciated or better utilized:
“I’ve kind of been written into oblivion the past year. Fortunately, I can speak and that has kept me over, and that has kept me relevant to some degree. Otherwise, a lot of it stemmed from the fact that it was believed that I was leaving. I even thought that I was going to be leaving, and at the last minute I did an inventory of everything, and I was like ‘I’m going to stay here.’ I was thinking that there’s going to be some level of happiness and appreciation [from the company about him staying] like ‘oh great, now we can use him in this great way!’ And then it was like…. uhh, no, we’ll feed him to Joe Hendry. We’ll feed him to… and I’m like ‘what? why?’
In the last couple of months, I have enjoyed myself very, very much. The stuff with Abyss, with Eddie, everything’s been good, but leading up to that point, I actually agree with you. I’m going to take this back to the late ‘90s because I have not kept up with wrestling; it’s 2003 if I’m being honest. If you look at The Rock, Steve Austin and Triple H, those guys weren’t always in the title picture necessarily, but they were within reach. I feel like if you watch this show between last April and this past December, you’d have no idea I was the World Champion the year before. I think that that’s where there’s a gigantic disconnect for my character in particular.”
Would he take good bookings over good money?
“There’s so many factors that go into that. There’s a level of freedom that I have enjoyed here, whether that be freedom to do whatever I want outside, or the freedom to just be like ‘they know me’ and if it comes down to a promo segment or whatever, [the producers are] like ‘here’s the points we want you to get across, go do your thing.’ That I love, that I appreciate. The money that I’m getting paid is great, and I know people are thinking ‘ahh, I don’t know, I heard IMPACT…’—no. I’m doing fine, I’m living comfortably. In considering that last year, I’m making good money, I’ve got a beautiful girlfriend here, I’m loving my life that I am living in Los Angeles, do I really want to go and move to ‘X’ city and actually take a pay cut in the meantime? The answer at that time was no. The answer was yes for a minute, because I was going to bet on myself, I’m going to do this and I know that I have potential to grow. At the same time, I was thinking about where I was and what I was doing… those decisions can be very intricate.”
Who is ‘Eli Drake’?
“Eli Drake is the argumentative jerk side of me and the party side of me both melded together, with the volume turned up. If you saw me at a party, or you saw me in an argument—or for some reason you saw me in an argument at a party, which would make no sense—you’d have Eli Drake.”
Drake confirmed on the show that his current deal runs out on May 31st, 2019, and talks about how he’s feeling about having another similar contract situation coming up. Drake says he’ll have to do another inventory of his life in a few months to see what the next step is, but no decisions have been made yet:
“How honest do I be here? [laughs] No, I think I voiced earlier a little disappointment with the first half of this last contract. I think the stuff with Eddie has been great, the match with Abyss—I never, ever want to have a match like that again, but it was great. That stuff was great, but that aside, that took a long, long time, like 5-6 months to get to any sort of relevance of a storyline again. With that I’m just kind of like, OK, maybe I should have taken the opportunity to go elsewhere, but at the same time again, you’ve got to do an inventory of your life. I’m living pretty comfortably; I’m living where I want to and making a decent paycheck, so I don’t know. We’ll see what happens in a couple months. Who knows.”
Related: Eli Drake On Speaking Skills Bringing In A Wider Audience, How He Puts His Own Promos Together
