PWP Nation’s Lewis Carlan explains why Eli Drake could be the latest breakout star from TNA Impact Wrestling.
With the departure of perennial stars Bobby Roode and Eric Young from TNA, the door has opened for other wrestlers to grab one of the spots that was held by the two. TNA has a lot of young talent on its roster but the one man that I believe can step it up and bring it to the next level is Eli Drake.
Eli Drake has impressed me ever since he made his debut in TNA as part of Drew Galloway’s faction The Rising. His mic work was very good as was his in ring performance. One could instantly see that there was potentially something special there. His plays the part of a big mouthed, arrogant individual very well.
After being a background player in The Rising, he eventually turned heel, left The Rising, and started his march towards the limelight. His first feud as a heel was with former Rising ally Drew Galloway which led to a great series of matches between the two. More recently he was involved in a feud with Grado that culminated in a ladder match which was outstanding.
Eli Drake, whose real name is Shaun Ricker began his pro wrestling career back in 2003 for Heartland Wrestling Association and was originally known as #2 of the Black Militia . He would eventually win the HWA TV Title. He would go on and wrestle for other promotions such as Mach One Wrestling and NWA Championship Wrestling from Hollywood.
In 2013, he was signed to WWE contract and was scheduled to report to the WWE performance center to begin his training. But things didn’t go as planned for Ricker. He worked one dark match for NXT as Slate Randall against Yoshi Tatsu. He was eventually released by the WWE in 2014.
Now as an emerging star in TNA, he has stated that he is using the WWE release as motivation to prove that they missed the boat by releasing him. And, so far, he is succeeding in proving that point.
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