Eli Drake graced IMPACT Wrestling with his presence in February of 2015 as part of a Gut Check event.
Drake was a big part of the roster and one of the most entertaining people in the business at the time.
Heading into WWE Money in the Bank, Knight stopped past The Ringer Wrestling Show’s Cheap Heat podcast and chatted with Peter Rosenberg.
As they were going through Knight’s career in wrestling, he spoke about his time in IMPACT as ‘Eli Drake’. He explained how that run positively impacted his career but admitted that he felt not many people were watching the show. Knight added that he thought there was a chance someone from WWE was watching but regardless of that, he always attempted to do what he could to stand out.
“Well I mean, it was pretty big (time in IMPACT Wrestling) because I mean, you consider here — at that point, the biggest exposure I’d had was Championship Wrestling from Hollywood or something, or maybe I think I was on the 200th episode of NXT as a lumberjack. You know, nameless, whatever. So at that point, it’s like alright, well now I’ve at least got some level of a platform to be on, I’m making money, I don’t have to work some other job while I’m doing this so I’m able to live, do what I wanna do and at the same time for me, my thought was always… First of all, my thought was nobody’s watching this show because that was the damn truth (he chuckled). But, on top of that, in my head I’m just thinking to myself, alright, maybe there’s a chance. Maybe there’s a slight chance that somebody at WWE might be watching this and so in my head, it was always, I’m gonna work like I’m in WWE or at least to the best of my ability or I’m gonna work at least like they’re watching me so there was never, again, there was never a time for me to slack off, back off, take it easy, none of that stuff because for me, it was like I’m gonna do my damndest to stand out amongst everybody and keep doing what I know I have to give to this industry. Problem is, I’ve probably given too much to this industry at this point.”
One of Knight’s signature catchphrases is, ‘Let me talk to ya’. He said that came about by accident. It started when he was tagging with Brian Cage in 2010 and while they were being interviewed, the interviewee went long with Cage so L.A. stepped in with the phrase.
‘Let me talk to ya’ kind of happened out of an accident. It was in 2010. I was tagging with Brian Cage at the time and we were out in California and the interviewee — we’d do this show called Mach One Wrestling. It was always these Friday night shows and afterwards, they’d have little interview sessions and stuff that they’d put online and in that, it felt like the interviewer was just interviewing Brian way too long… I said, ‘Let me talk to ya’ and I was just like, oh man, that might be a good little start, and so I just started using it and eventually, it’s just kind of become a thing.
H/T Andrew Thompson from POST Wrestling full article here
In late August 2017, Drake finally reached the top of IMPACT by winning the World Title. His 146-day reign included defenses against Matt Sydal, Alberto El Patron, and Johnny Impact (a.k.a. John Morrison) before he lost the title to Austin Aries.
On top of capturing the World Title, Eli is a former IMPACT Grand Champion, TNA Television Champion, & a former IMPACT Tag Team Champion (w/Scott Steiner).
LA Knight was previously in a program with Bray Wyatt prior to Bray stepping away.
Now known as LA Knight in WWE, he is preparing for maybe the biggest match of his entire career as WWE embarks upon the Money in the Bank Premium Live Event in London, England. Knight will compete against Shinsuke Nakamura, Ricochet, Damien Priest, Logan Paul, Butch, & Santos Escobar.
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