10 Things We Learned From Speaking To Eli Drake

Before making a name for himself in TNA, Eli Drake actually had a spell under the WWE umbrella in the NXT system.

That stint would come to a end after Eli - seemingly like so many others - butted heads with trainer Bill DeMott. But while the relationship with WWE didn't work out back then, WWE has repeatedly shown interesting in bringing the Namer of Dummies back to the company.

Three times over the past few years, WWE has had an offer on the table for Eli. And three times, Eli Drake has said no.

As Drake explained, "They made an offer to me in 2016, 2017, and 2018. In 2016, I didn't take it because Impact was giving me a big raise. I'd never seen money like they were giving me, and the money that WWE were offering me was very low. It was not great, so I was like, 'Well, okay, I'll take a year at this [Impact] money.' I checked them out a year later, and it was the same offer and I had a raise with Impact again."

Detailing how he was so close to signing with WWE in 2018, Eli continued on, "So 2018, they came to me one more time, exact same offer. In my head, I thought, 'You know what, screw it. I'll take the cut, I'll take the bet on myself that it's going to quickly go up.' Just personal things happened in my life that caused me to stay where I was and not move across the country. I ended up staying here. I wasn't hurting for money, I was making good money in Impact, so if I stayed for another year it wasn't a big deal. But professionally, it was just a bad idea."