WWE: Drake Maverick surprises as one of the year’s breakout stars

Between his comedic work for the WWE main roster and his more grounded work on 205 Live, Drake Maverick has proven to be a versatile breakout star.

2019 so far has seen a sea of young upstarts emerge from the bottom of the WWE roster and breakout as some of the program’s key figures. Names like Ricochet, Nikki Cross and – according to WWE – Lacey Evans immediately spring to mind as far as WWE breakout stars is concerned, but I don’t think that we can have a conversation about breakout stars without mentioning Drake Maverick.

It was about a year and a half ago when the former Rockstar Spud first made the jump to WWE from Impact Wrestling. After signing, he was rechristened as Drake Maverick and booked as the new, first ever General Manager of 205 Live.

As an authority figure, Maverick did not inject himself into storylines and we usually only ever saw him when it came time to announce matches for the purple brand. In a time when GMs and wrassle bosses spend way too much time onscreen, especially on WWE’s main roster, the use of Maverick was refreshing.

Then, WWE made the strange decision in the latter part of 2018 to have Maverick work Raw as the heel manager to Authors of Pain. While he was still a babyface GM for 205 Live. It was weird.

It just didn’t work. It wasn’t so much that audiences were incapable of taking Drake Maverick seriously on his own merits because his match against Mike Kanellis proves they can (more on that later). It’s just that we couldn’t take this 5’5 blond haired pretty boy seriously as the leather jacket wearing, SWAT gear donning badass threat that WWE wanted to paint him as.

They tried to paint this image for Drake right up until Survivor Series when WWE booked Maverick to piss himself. Literally, on live television.

A goofy joke segment like this should have meant the kiss of death for his career, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

While the Authors of Pain’s credibility diminished a bit when the real broody badasses aligned themselves with a man who had become such a silly character, this allowed Drake Maverick to focus more on his comedy schtick, an element that he excelled in during his pre-WWE stint. He settled into his new role with ease and it was a role that was much more believable for Raw viewers to digest from him.  This wound up being a precursor to the comedic character that we see Drake Maverick as today. Well, on the main roster.

This only benefited Maverick for a short period of time, however, as by early 2019, Akam was injured and without Akam, there was no Authors of Pain to book on TV. And without the Authors of Pain, Drake Maverick Raw run was done.  He stopped getting booked on television and stuck to his appearances on 205 Live for the most part.

Then, a miracle arrived in the form of the 24/7 Championship. While the comedy title has allowed some much needed screen time for a bevy of underutilized talents, no one has benefited from the title more than Drake Maverick.

He went from getting no screen time at all to not only being a consistent foil to R-Truth on both Raw and SmackDown, as well as becoming a multi-time 24/7 Title winner, but he even managed to get his real life wife a gig on the show. Maverick has taken the ball given to him by WWE and has continued to run with it for several months now. Best of all, all of his segments with the 24/7 Championship have made for some entertaining, quality television.

As if that’s not good enough, his role on 205 Live as General Manager has been elevated as well, perhaps thanks in part to how well he’s been working on the main roster. While it is strange to see Maverick play such a straight laced GM a day after being goofy on Raw (it’s like these characters aren’t even in the same universe), he continues to play the role well, especially in his feud with Mike Kanellis.

His feud with Kanellis reached its zenith last Tuesday when the two attempted to settle their differences in an Unsanctioned Match. While Maverick showed no signs of the comedy character he is on the main roster, the match itself wound up being an amalgamation of everything he’s done on all three shows as of late.

Maverick 24/7. The “WANTED” posters for the 24/7 Championship. All was incorporated into this match as Kanellis’ way to highlight how he thought Maverick was a joke and how his shenanigans made the 205 Live a joke. For several minutes, Kanellis dwarfed over, pounded and practically bullied Maverick until the crowd was in a stunned silence. Then, suddenly, Maverick mounted a comeback and the crowd erupted.

The same crowd who had to have been exhausted following two hours of watching SmackDown Live were suddenly on their feet cheering on “Drake! Drake! Drake!” That takes a special sort of skill that few Superstars possess.

Drake Maverick’s work this past week should be viewed as a prime example of that versatility. On Monday Night Raw, he once again stole the show as a memorable part of some hilarious 24/7 Title action during a Moshpit Mixed Tag Match alongside his wife vs. R-Truth and Carmella. The very next night, he switched tones for a superb match vs. Mike Kanellis.

Seeing Maverick switch characters at the drop of a dime like that is a rarity among wrestlers. Crowds saw Maverick go from an over the top, silly goof to a genuinely sympathetic underdog and it was believable to witness. That takes a special kind of versatility to not only do it in a believable way, but to do so for several months on end. That versatility should not be overlooked, as Maverick continues to do it so, so well.

For these reasons, Drake Maverick is one of the very best breakout stars of 2019 so far. He started the year off without a storyline in sight, and now in August, he remains a consistent highlight of both Raw and 205 Live. There’s no telling where he’ll be by the end of the year.