Eli Drake On His Random Encounter With The Undertaker

IMPACT Wrestling’s Eli Drake recently spoke with Wrestlezone’s Kevin Kellam, and the topic of his run-in with The Undertaker came up.

Drake, who was at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas with Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie, said the meeting was completely random, but the timing was impeccable:

“It was completely random happenstance. I was actually just telling Taya that I’d seen a picture of myself, and I said ‘wow, I should really be wearing some shades’, my eyes looked like I was 1991 [era] Undertaker. I’m not making it up, I said I look like 1991 Undertaker, and not ten seconds later I turn around, and he’s right there. He was like ‘oh, I didn’t know they were going to have wrestlers here’ and he came over and shook our hands and introduced himself. We took a picture and he went on his way. About 20 minutes later, we saw Goldberg. No picture. He just appeared on his own, he doesn’t need to be summoned.

I feel like nobody is going to believe that that was actually the case, but I had literally just said that, and boom! There he was. My brain manifested it. The Secret works.”

Drake and Valkyrie were at the trade show promoting IMPACT Wrestling’s move to Pursuit Network, and he talked about the move to a new television network and simulcasting live on Twitch:

“Since the move to Pursuit, if anyone is not familiar with the network, it’s a lot of hunting and fishing shows. SHOT Show is like a large gun trade show, or something of that nature, and they had us out there to integrate us, meet people. Shaking hands, taking pictures, kissing babies, all that kind of stuff.

One of the perks that they’ve been pushing is people can even add their own commentary, adding a fun and interactive element to the whole thing. When you look at things as far as television and streaming, it does seem like it’s eventually going to move into that realm—TV is going to become a little bit passé—I think it will be like radio. With radio, there’s still music, but for the most part people have mp3s or Spotify, satellite radio.

Once they figure out how to monetize [digital streaming as a primary outlet], I think that’s when the real crossover is going to begin. That’s why television is still king; you need TV. It’s a necessity because that’s where the money is. You’re running a business, and at the end of the day, if you’re running a business, you’ve got to make money. The biggest advertising dollars are coming from television—not to mention there’s just a certain ‘aura’, there’s a certain feeling about being on TV where it still is special to a lot of people.”

Check out the full audio interview with Eli Drake below: