GFW News: Eli Drake opens up about his reaction to winning the GFW title, current Impact ratings and more
What’s the story?
Current Global Force Wrestling champion, Eli Drake recently spoke with Justin Barrasso from Sports Illustrated. Drake spoke about various topics during the interview, including Impact Wrestling's current ratings.
In case you didn’t know…
On 14th August, 2017, Alberto El Patron’s reign as GFW champion came to an end, when he was stripped of the title following his suspension from the company.
Three days later, Impact had a 20-man gauntlet match to decide the new champion, which was won by Eli Drake and he won a world championship for the first time in his career.
The heart of the matter
During his chat with Sports Illustrated, Drake was asked what it felt like to win the GFW Title. The former TNA King of the Mountain champion claimed that he doubled his training once he came to know that he would win the World title.
“Once I heard the decision was made, I put a lot of extra pressure on myself to not relax or be complacent. I actually started doubling up my workouts and I was in the ring two or three times a week extra just because I wanted my work in the ring, on the mic, and my conditioning to be second to none. If I’m going to be the face of the company, then I’m going to make sure I can go like nobody else.”
With the current NFL season beginning earlier in the month (on 8th September), Global Force Wrestling finds themselves under all sorts of pressure when it comes to ratings. Drake also addressed the situation and what he thinks should be done in order to help the company to keep up with the ratings.
“I don’t like to use that as an excuse. If we’re putting out a compelling product, then we should still have the eyeballs on our product. If you rewind about 20 years, and look at WWE in 1997, they were putting on a great product but nobody knew because WCW made such a loud noise via the NWO. It took WWE another year-and-a-half to make that big comeback, even though they were producing some great stuff with Austin and DX.”
The GFW champion also said that a lot of pressure is on him, due to him being the current top champion of the company. He believes that there is a lot of burden on him and it is his duty to make sure that people are tuning in every week to watch their product.
What’s next?
GFW are currently preparing for their next big PPV, Bound for Glory. The PPV is set to take place in Ontario, Canada this year, and has a really solid card featuring the likes of Lashley, Rosemary, LAX, Trevor Lee, and the GFW champion Eli Drake himself, who will defend his title against Johnny Mundo.
GFW have also announced that Alberto El Patron will make his return to the company at the event which might help the company in terms of ratings and marketing as well.
Author’s take
GFW seems to be going under a major change once again, but despite all of this, the company needs to make sure that they don’t make any changes in the booking system. The company has been booking in a great manner lately, something that Impact wrestling lacked over the years.
It is surely great to see the likes of OVE, Dezmond Xavier, Taya, Rosemary, Matt Sydal and others getting a lot of recognition and a chance to perform on a big stage. Impact cannot afford to make a bad booking decision that will affect the company’s ratings, as they are in competition against the NFL.