Eli Drake is an integral part of the Impact Wrestling roster these days, but for years he was "blacklisted" by WWE.
Ahead of a big pay-per-view weekend for Impact, Drake spoke to the UK Mirror, and recalled that he wasn't used or contacted by WWE because of a snafu on his part that ended up leaving him out in the cold.
Ha ha. Well, I'd put a lot of that down to politics if I was honest with you and some of it is me shooting myself in the foot here and there. But a lot of it is not being allotted a lot of opportunities, for one reason or another. I have voiced frustrations about some of the guys that I know, who have been doing it as long as I have. They have already had their run and they are on the back end of their career, while mine is really just starting now and I have been in there just as long. I started to look at it and it's like 'man, if I had done X, Y, Z, I'd have already had my run too'. But it's a lot of different stuff.
When I was on the indies back in 2008, I had an opportunity with WWE when I went in and did a dark match and they liked me and wanted me to come back the next week. And here's the part where I shot myself in the foot, I showed up an hour late on that second day, due to some circumstances, and after that, they didn't talk to me for about three years. I was put on a blacklist. I didn't even end up getting to WWE into developmental until my tenth year in [the business] and a lot of that again, some of that was me, some of that was politics, but a lot of it was BS. So, it's a little frustrating every time I think about it, it kind of bites me in the ass every day, but at the same time, it's also kind of what drives me.
Eli Drake will compete for the Impact Wrestling Tag Team titles alongside Scott Steiner against LAX at Impact Wrestling's Redemption PPV on Sunday, April 22. Fightful will have full, live coverage and a post-show podcast. You can see the full interview with Eli Drake at this link.
