The most recent wrestlers to have jumped ship from TNA to WWE (or NXT) have included Samoa Joe, Austin Aries, Luke Gallows, Bobby Roode, Eric Young and of course, AJ Styles. All have experienced some measure of success on either the WWE’s main roster, or with the NXT brand with Styles achieving the most to this point. And another TNA star may soon be joining them.
According to a report from Daily Wrestling News, WWE is in heavy pursuit of current TNA star, Eli Drake, with the intent of bringing him into the company for 2017. Drake, whose real name is Shaun Ricker, worked dark matches for the WWE in 2006 and 2008 but nothing panned out on that front until 2013. It was then that he made it to WWE’s NXT under the ring name Slate Randall, but was released from his deal in the summer of 2014.
[Image by TNA Wrestling]
There is a major holdup in a potential deal between Drake and WWE in that he is still signed to TNA. Seven months ago, Dixie Carter announced that Drake had agreed to a new contract with TNA, but the length of the deal was never made public. Drake’s TNA tenure began in Feburary 2015 and the highlights have included his involvement in The Rising faction, TNA World Heavyweight Championship opportunities and the King of the Mountain Title.
The WWE’s pursuit of Drake would counter a previous report that the company was not interested in signing any wrestler weighing more than 205 pounds at the moment. They were focusing on stockpiling their cruiserweight division on RAW and 205 Live. But this signing, the imminent re-signing of Chris Hero and the recent announcement of the creation of the United Kingdom Title Tournament pushes that to the wayside.
Speaking of Hero, Eli Drake was a contestant on TNT’s reality show The Hero back in 2013. The Rock was the host and WWE officials were extremely high on him after his performance on the show. As noted, Drake was released in August 2014 along with several other developmental talent who were all told they were cut due to budgetary reasons.
[Image by TNA Wrestling]
However, it began leaking out that the current TNA star was let go by the WWE for reasons beyond the budget. Despite developing the type of charisma and in-ring performance the company was looking for, some WWE officials were disappointed with his social media activity and one certain email he sent while employed by WWE. The details of the email in question have not become public, but his tweets were enough to do him in.
DWN dug up an old interview that Drake conducted on the Pancakes and Powerslams podcast last June where he revealed why he believed he was in the WWE’s doghouse instead of on their active roster.
“I was on the black list there for a while. One of the guys who used to work in Talent Relations – I’ll leave him nameless – he got fired around early 2012, apparently not very liked in the back anyway; I guess he was kind of a jerk to a lot of people, for whatever reason, would bury me in the office. So I was kind of just, nobody could touch me; nobody would touch me. So for a lot of years it was frustration and wondering what I’m working toward and why isn’t these guys taking my calls. And I finally started getting some of the details of why this guy was burying me. There was talk of them picking me up in 2011, I was there for SummerSlam, and then and the follow-up Raw and SmackDown, and everything went incredibly well. But all of a sudden it was like radio silence on their end and I hadn’t quite understood why until I spoke to this person, and he was like, “Well, we’re gonna go in a different direction.” I’m like, “OK?” and he’s like, “You can check out Ring of Honor or TNA or whatever.”
Several months after that conversation, Eli noted that the WWE official in question was fired so he began sending in more tapes of his performances. The person who took over that job immediately responded and tried to set up tryouts but discovered Drake was blacklisted. Drake continued the winding tale.
“…Then, a few months later I got offered a tryout but simultaneously, I also was offered a TNA tryout. So, my TNA tryout was on a Thursday and my WWE tryout was actually that following Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I was ecstatic because I have the two biggest companies vying for me and it’s perfect. Thursday I go into Impact and that goes well, then Sunday I get an email and I’m told that I can’t come to the (WWE) tryout. They couldn’t say why, but I’m pretty certain it was because there was a lawsuit going on between TNA and WWE at the time.”
We’ll see if time has indeed healed this particular wound, but it looks like Eli Drake will be WWE bound if and when his TNA contract expires.
[Featured Image by TNA Wrestling]