News

IMPACT’s Eli Drake Offers Interesting Take On Fans Who Prefer In-Ring Action

Published

6 years ago

September 20, 2018

IMPACT Wrestling has certainly made some strides in 2018 with their product with great in-ring action and storytelling. One of their stars who has become one of the more entertaining portions of their programming has been Eli Drake, who re-signed with the company this year.

Eli’s ‘Facts Of Life’ segment has easily become one of IMPACT’s most popular recurring parts of their weekly Pop TV program, showing off his ability to entertain and character work. While speaking to WrestlingInc after the recent One Night Only: Night Of The Dummies pay-per-view in August, Drake had some interesting words regarding wrestling fans today, more specifically the ones who desire to see primarily only in-ring action:

“Like, you have to be able to tell a good story. I didn’t care about a Dean Malenko, I’m sorry Dean. I actually like you, you’re a nice guy personally, amazing worker in the ring, but it’s just boring if you can’t tell me a story. But, if you can say something memorable and give me memorable moments, that’s something. Nobody goes up to Steve Austin and goes, ‘Stunner!’. If anything, they pretend they got beer cans and do this *pours them into mouth* or they go, ‘Ahem’, or ‘That’s the bottom line’. You know, there’s memorable stuff as opposed to going up to somebody like, ‘Moonsault!’. It’s not something you do.

So my favorite part of the industry was always the drama, the trash-talk, all that kind of stuff and if you can throw in hard hitting action on the back end of that, that’s amazing. But, to rely only on that action and to not be able to bring it with any kind of character or anything like that, which I think is a plague in this business right now…sorry just speaking the truth…I think we’re doing the business a disservice, I think we’re doing the fans a disservice and I think that’s why you look at a RAW or SmackDown TV audience…or not TV, the live audiences where they can’t fill the arenas…or even the TV audiences where they can’t fill the hard camera side…IMPACT I can say. I will say Ring Of Honor’s doing well, but they’re in their own niche group and they were able to sell out Madison Square Garden or whatever, but they can’t do that every week. That’s a once a year thing. That’s like a WrestleMania-type thing or whatever.”

Quotes c/o WrestlingInc

If you use any of the above please credit The Chairshot for transcription.

EA’s Take: The man isn’t wrong, that’s for sure and that’s just a ‘Fact Of Life’ (see what I did there?). It’s beyond annoying seeing all the fans dragging places like WWE weekly because they think the “workers” should be in all the top spots. A prime example of this is the beyond stupid #WeWantTalent that’s been on Twitter the last couple of days. It’s essentially a call for all the marks to whine, piss and moan because their favorite isn’t in a spot they think they should be. Sorry, fools. If you want in-ring action exclusively, WWE is not the company for you. I’ve said it a million times, but the problem is these people believe they are in the majority when reality is they are the vocal minority. If you don’t like it, watch NJPW, watch Ring Of Honor, watch ANY NUMBER OF OTHER PROMOTIONS.

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AEW Coverage

Mitchell’s AEW Continental Classic Update! (11/27/23)

What a start to the tournament!

Published

5 months ago

November 27, 2023

Steven Mitchell

Did your picks win points?

The AEW Continental Classic is underway, with almost everyone competing. Check in here if you haven’t seen the winners and losers of week 1!

Here are your Gold League standings!

Jon Moxley: 1-0, 3 points
Swerve Strickland: 1-0, 3 points
Jay White: 1-0, 3 points
Rush: 0-1, 0 points
Mark Briscoe: 0-1, 0 points.
Jay Lethal: 0-1, 0 points

Here are your Blue League standings!

Brody King: 1-0, 3 points
Claudio Castagnoli: 1-0, 3 points
Daniel Garcia: 0-1, 0 points
Eddie Kingston: 0-1, 0 points
Bryan Danielson: Yet to Compete
Andrade El Idolo: Yet to Compete

My Thoughts:

Nothing too crazy, nothing too wild, this tournament only just got started. The only disappointing point is that they could not get Bryan “cleared to compete” Saturday night. Not sure how much of that is shoot given the bad eye, but this was kinda the problem of wanting him in the tournament over tons of other choices. Bryan wants to face Okada for WrestleKingdom 18, how is Bryan supposed to do that at his best if he’s also gonna be in a round robin, doing five top level matches in about as many weeks? And it takes away from Andrade being able to do something. Also a little surprised we didn’t even hear from Andrade on Saturday.

Now as we heard on Saturday, round two’s matches are set. Gold League will see Mark Briscoe VS Rush, White VS Swerve, and of course, Moxley VS Lethal. Nice variety there, a couple 0-1 guys facing off, as well as two 1-0 guys, and then 1-0 VS 0-1. No offense to Lethal, but he feels like an 0-2 going up against Moxley. Hard to call the other ones but that’s the fun of it. Meanwhile, Blue League sees Brody VS Claudio in a showdown to be 2-0, then Bryan and Andrade finally jump in, Bryan against Eddie and Andrade against Garcia. Sadly, feels like Eddie and Garcia are going 0-2, no way Tony Khan is booking Bryan and Andrade to lose their first shots.

In fact, that could be half the reason they did wait on those two, that’s almost too good for just a first round opener. But I still would’ve done it, same as NJPW does stuff like that for round robins, which this is all modeled after anyway.

Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!

AEW Coverage

AEW announces Continental Classic entrants

The C2 is set!

Published

5 months ago

November 22, 2023

Steven Mitchell

Tony Khan Reveals the Blue and Gold “Leagues!”

Originally livestreamed, Tony Khan and Tony Schiavone officially announced the twelve total entrants and divided them into the two round robin blocks known as the “Blue League” and “Gold League.” If you don’t feel like sifting through the almost 30 minute video, the groups are:

Blue League

Bryan Danielson
Andrade El Idolo
Brody King
Claudio Castagnoli
Daniel Garcia
Eddie Kingston

Gold League

Jon Moxley
Swerve Strickland
Rush
Mark Briscoe
Jay Lethal
Jay White

Tony Khan also explains the rules for the Continental Classic:

Every match has a 20 minute time limit
The winner of each match earns 3 points, losers earn 0, 1 point for a draw
EVERYONE ELSE is banned from ringside for true 1v1 action

Eddie Kingston also joined the selection special as his “life’s work” is on the line in this tournament, both the ROH World Championship and NJPW Strong Openweight Championship on the line as part of the modern day North American Triple Crown Eddie, Tony Khan, AEW, ROH and NJPW are looking to create together. Gold League competes tonight on Dynamite while Blue League will have their start this Saturday on Collision. Look for more articles like this one to keep up with the Continental Classic standings over the next six weeks of tournament action!

Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!