Eli Drake On How NWA Handles Promos, NWA Not Having Entrance Music For Wrestlers

NWA has promised to bring back the old-school feel of wrestling and that was apparent with their Power event. The focus was strictly on wrestling and that was magnified by NWA eliminating entrance music for all of the performers.

Eli Drake was a part of the Powerrr debut show and he talked about how the lack of music actually had fans more engaged with the product when he joined Busted Open Radio.

"I think it has been a big surprise for a lot of people. I think it was a surprise for the talent as well with just what we were doing. You go in there with some expectations, and at the same time you go in there not knowing much of anything, especially when we were in there we kind of had a meeting about everything and they told us that we are not going to have any entrance music, there were a lot of people, including myself thinking, 'What the?' That is different. That is going to kind of take the air out of the room and kill things I feel like, but it couldn't have been more of the opposite," revealed Drake.

"It kind of helped the flow of the show keep going. The people ended up being our music in a sense if you will and it was just an amazing vibe. The crazy thing is that I know people paid a good amount for those tickets but there was a point in time after our first match thinking, did we pay the people because they were so reactive it was like something I had never seen before."

After spending four years in Impact Wrestling, Drake joined NWA earlier this year on an exclusive deal. Even though he was a world champion with Impact, Drake believes he now has a better opportunity to be a known name in wrestling with NWA.

"If you look at the platform right now it is baby steps, although, man, that was one big baby step for that first week. You know, Billy Corgan has a big vision. He has a great idea for what he wants to do and how he wants to distribute it and I have always liked Billy and Dave Lagana's platform as far as being more character-driven and just kind of let us do our own thing and let the talent be talented. So yeah, I think it is a good opportunity for that," Drake said of becoming a bigger star. "I think now after our first show at the gate we have a lot of eyes on us and I don't think people expected it to pick up the way that it did. I have to say, if you look at the feedback and whether it is Twitter, Reddit or whatever it has all been overly positive."

Drake mentioned that NWA lets the talent be talented and that goes along with promos which aren't scripted for the most part. He talked about the freedom that NWA gives him and what he feels is missing in pro wrestling today.

"Half the time Dave Lagana will come up to me and tell me to just go out there and do my thing. That first promo that I did on the first episode they really didn't give me much of a direction," stated Drake. "All they said to me was to give my mission statement, I said okay and I gave my mission statement. I went out there and said what is on my mind as far as what has bothered me about the business for a while.

"I think the reason a lot of the demographic shift has happened is because there is a lot of fans that feel as though they are being left out in the cold in a sense because the business has changed in such a way that it just doesn't appeal to them anymore. And that is not to knock anybody, I think there is something for everybody in pro wrestling. But you would think that there is a good portion of the audience that still wants to see these personalities that are larger than life, guys that they would feel like they can kick their a** in real life; somebody they don't feel like they can walk up to and slap them in the face and get a rebuttal from. That is something that I miss from the old days.

"I wasn't around in the old days, but if you look at guys from the 70s, 80s and 90s, back then these guys were the kind of guys that if you walked up to them in a bar you would not go up to them and talk trash to. But I feel like a lot of the guys that you see today there is not a lot of the same feeling about it. I don't know, to me, it was the appeal to that and allow us to speak how we feel and speak to what our characters are and I feel like it is only going to make all of us better and allow the company to be better."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Peter Bahi contributed to this article.