wrestling / Columns

Spotlight: Drake vs. Carter

October 25, 2016 | Posted by Dino Zee

Gonna dial things back a bit as far as the PWI-style writing this week, and I’ll get into that later on in the column. Just a heads up.

The last few weeks in TNA have seen two of its brighter talents in a bit of a staring contest, with Ethan Carter, the Third (MY BOY EC3 in these parts) and E_Li_Drake having some real obvious animosity between them. If you watched Impact this past Thursday, you know that someone finally blinked. But before we get there, let’s talk about how it started.

It was Drake who initiated the bad feelings, antagonizing Carter on the post-Bound For Glory edition of Fact of Life. Fresh off winning the Bound for Gold match at the big event, Drake was feeling on top of the world, and he used that opportunity to antagonize a clearly unhappy Carter, who was coming off his loss to Lashley in BFG’s main event.

As usual, it was Drake’s insistence on pushing the Dummy Button (while incessantly claiming that Carter was a “choke-artist”) that led to another outburst, as Carter begged for Drake to press it one more time, so that Carter could unleash all of his anger onto Eli. Of course, Drake opted to not press the button, living to fight another day instead.

It was more of the same the next week, with Drake again getting into Carter’s face about how he chokes under pressure, but managing to avoid any actual conflict. Carter would then go on to lose to Moose in the main event, only proving Drake’s point (in his mind, at least), while adding to the building rage inside of EC3.

So it was no surprise on Thursday when Drake pushed things a little too far, and said a little too much, and pressed that damn button one too many times, that things got a little out of control. The Impact Zone became a chaotic mess, with Aron Rex and Jessie Godderz sucked into the fray.

Carter and Drake are two of TNA’s brightest talents, with nice futures ahead of them. For this reason alone, the feud between them is intriguing. While not necessarily “home grown,” any star power that they command at this point has to be solely placed on the work they’ve done in TNA, and I think that’s absolutely a compliment.

TNA is smart to put these two together. It gives Drake his largest playing field yet, going head to head with the top babyface, and the man who rarely loses. If Drake can pick up any type of pin or submission victory over Carter in this feud – no matter how dastardly the circumstances surrounding it – he will have a humongous feather in his cap, and he instantly becomes even more legitimate.

And that’s what Drake’s been lacking so far, is some type of credible win. Beating Bram just doesn’t have the same ring as beating a James Storm or a Drew Galloway would. He’s been rightly cast as more mouth than action, but at some point, we have to be willing to believe that Drake is a threat. I do, but that’s because I’m a fan. If you don’t dig his mic work, then Drake is a bit of a hard sell. Hopefully this feud with Carter will allow him to showcase some things we haven’t seen yet.

In just the couple weeks of interaction the two have had, Drake has done a great job of calling out the other reason I love this feud: the absolute juxtaposition of the two men, despite their list of similarities. Both are “alphas,” looking to be the top dog wherever they go. Both are brash, and neither will truly back down. Drake might look for a smarter moment, but he’s never going to completely turn down a fight.

However, while TNA has spent all of 2016 trying to trick fans into forgetting about EC3’s first two years, it hasn’t worked on me. Carter, despite all of his “ass kicking machine” bluster, was one of the most underhanded characters on the roster from his debut in 2013 until a little bit after Bound For Glory last year. It’s actually quite eerie how similar old EC3 and current Drake appear to be.

Carter joined TNA and was handed the world thanks to his Aunt Dixie running the show. He was given every break, handed easy opponents, and protected by any number of goons at all times. His big wins were all severely tainted, but he used them as bragging points anyways, knowing it only served to anger those he hated even more. He was petulant, braggadocious, and completely self-serving. Even devoted friends like Rockstar Spud were viciously cast aside once they no longer served a purpose.

He may be cast as the ultimate hero, but until late last year, Carter was anything but. He had a tailor-made road to success laid out, and he allowed everyone to carry him along.

Eli Drake, on the other hand, has been given a much different road to stardom. As he’s sarcastically mentioned, he debuted under the bright lights with “some guy named Micah.” The third man in a group of three, it wasn’t until The Rising was disbanded that Drake got any attention, despite, as seen in the video, having all the mic skills then that we all love so much now.

Drake has had to take everything, stealing Feast or Fired briefcases in order to cash in title shots on injured opponents. And even then, his reign was short. He’s still managed to win enough to remain meaningful, but after falling short in the Grand Championship tournament, things looked bad for the man.

Lucky for him, Bound For Gold provided the road he needed to get to the top. For two characters portrayed as so different on TV, they truly have so much in common, with Carter’s family connections being the only difference. And Drake does a great job of letting that jealousy openly flow from him. I’d argue that it’s less about hating Carter for his easy road, and more about being envious that he wasn’ t afforded such luxury.

More than anything, it’s a fresh feud between, as noted, two of TNA’s best talents. It allows Carter a spotlight while staying away from the TNA Title picture for a bit, and it gives Drake his absolute biggest stage, with TNA’s juggernaut of destruction, to prove that he’s not just the loudest mouth in the room.

My only hope is that Drake is not absolutely sacrificed to the altar of Carter. We all know that EC3 is the golden boy of TNA, so why not have him share some of that shine? This is a great opportunity to solidify Drake as a main event superstar.

And that’ll do it for the “column” portion this week. Figured I’d use this portion to have more of a fire-side chat with you, the readers.

As we know, since the summer, I went all ApterMag on everyone again. For me, it really clicked when I did the column on Matt Hardy attacking the fan. I just thought the idea of someone calling for state athletic commissions to hand out fines and suspensions would be funny, so I went with it. And then, Matt Hardy provided all sorts of entertainment, and there was just no way in hell I was going to cover any of that in a “straight” fashion. The entire Broken Universe is meant to be covered as kayfabey as possible, unless you really like being one of those I just don’t get why popular things are popular types looking to grumble.

So, alas, I stuck with it. And I wrote some non-Hardy columns in the same style. And you know what? For me, it just makes more sense to write about wrestling that way. You know, the way where you talk about what happened, the way it happened?

Yet, this really seems to agitate some of the readers. There’s usually one or two It’s still real to this guy commenters, others who think I’m legitimately appalled at what I’m seeing (instead of me simply enjoying it), and many who just seem to dislike kayfabe columns regardless of how well / poorly they’re written.

Again, why? Is it any different than reading the latest South Park review here, and reading about how “Cartman and his girlfriend then tried to unify the school and…?” I feel like, in the above Carter/Drake breakdown, it’s almost necessary to talk about how Drake has constantly been in Carter’s ear the last few weeks, and that it’s driven by his jealousy.

It’s necessary to talk about how Carter has done things the easy way since he arrived, and that has motivated lots of the other superstars to dislike him. It adds to the story. Does that mean that in real life, Shaun Ricker is jealous of Michael Hutter’s success? Of course not. But I don’t watch Shaun Ricker and Michael Hutter. I watch Eli Drake and Ethan Carter.

So yeah, I’m the guy that likes wrestling, and tries to cover it in a fun way. I mean, how many columns with lists do you need? How many preachy guys talking about everything they call do you need? I’m not even trying to hate on the guys that make lists, but I feel like there’s plenty of that. We have plenty of people talking about the news and gossip. News and gossip that is, quite often by quite a few readers, always dismissed as bullshit. So why would I even waste my time and effort on backstage rumors that may be proven to be total bullshit?

Why not, you know, just talk about the show? And what happened on the show?

I may not change any minds, but at least I’ve explained myself. The ZeeWI title is going to be there to let you know when I go full on with it, and I’ll keep it out of the title when I’m a little more straightforward. Like, say, if I do some historical write up on an old favorite. But if it’s not that, then I’m treating wrestling like it’s real. Because that’s the show. The part on TV. Not the real life happenings of the actors in the roles.


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article topics :

EC3, Eli Drake, TNA, Dino Zee