The latest Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling welcomed IMPACT Wrestling’s “Namer Of Dummies”, Eli Drake. Catch IMPACT Wrestling’s SLAMMIVERSARY on Sunday, July 2nd LIVE on Pay Per View. In this excerpt, Drake discusses his SLAMM 15 match against Impact Grand Champion Moose & NFL star DeAngelo Williams, teaming with Chris Adonis and the positive changes made inside of IMPACT Wrestling.
Below are some interview highlights, with an h/t to The Two Man Power of Wrestling for the transcription:
What should fans expect when they tune in to Slammiversary:
“You’ve got so much going on right now and so many stories and there is something for everybody. The one thing that you have to make sure you look at is ELI DRAKE and C.A. (Chris Adonis) and a couple of goofs and one guy from the NFL named DeAngelo Williams. I think it is going to be a good time and it will probably be more of a marquee matchup as far as cross promotion and the outside media so I am looking forward to that. We are talking about unifying titles with Patron and Lashley so we will have one IMPACT Champion. It will be a culmination of a lot of things and a rebirth of the company as some people are saying.”
Is he prepared for the mainstream press that comes with an athlete getting into the ring and what does he expect from DeAngelo Williams:
“That is long overdue for this guy. I look at DeAngelo Williams and he is a hell of an athlete but did he put in the time and is he going to be ready when it is time to get in the ring and perform? I guess we will find out Sunday but I give all the respect in the world to him for what he’s done in the football world but now he is in wrestling and that is a whole different beast. Guys who have tried to come from football have tried and failed and they have fallen hard. I’ve got a good feeling that is the problem we are going to have with DeAngelo Williams but we will see and maybe he will tough it out. Moose has toughed it out so far but even he has a long way to go.”
When did he see IMPACT Wrestling turn the corner and start to make positive changes:
“I don’t know if you can break it down to a particular day or not but I would definitely say we are in a rebirth period of some sort. If you just look at the way that things are growing and I don’t think a lot of people on the outside would know but we are seeing numbers and things like that from our end and it is a very impressive thing to see. A lot of it falls on the talent and has fallen on the talent for about the last year or more and even when management wasn’t up to “par” but I think having a lot of those changes in the upper management has made it a lot easier for us to kind of get out from underneath that black cloud.”
Jeff Jarrett’s return to IMPACT Wrestling and management changes made recently:
“I’ll tell you what, I am going to withhold comment on that because the jury is still out on that one as far as I’m concerned. We’ve been alright but we will see what the deal is. Bruce and I have kind of got off on the wrong foot and I’m not sure if we’ve really got on the right foot yet. We will see what is to come. I’ll leave you with a non-answer. how about that?”
Has his “Namer of Dummies” promo style always come easy to him:
“Easy? I don’t know. But it was always my focus. When I started I didn’t really know necessarily what to say or anything like that and it was let me just talk really in a certain tone and as long as I have that going I should be okay. It is more a lot of times of how you say what you say and not what you actually say. As far as promos are concerned, it wasn’t anything that came super-easy it was just always my focus and to get really good at that and almost let the wrestling be secondary and I know that might sound terrible to some people but if you look at some of the guys who were some of the most successful ever, their wrestling wasn’t necessarily what stood out. It was their character or their performance and all the guys that I liked growing up were usually those guys like Rock, Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and all guys who could work but guys who I don’t think needed to and it was almost secondary.”
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Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
