Drake Maverick: The Most Sympathetic Figure in Wrestling or a Marketing Genius
Last week, Drake Maverick became one of the most talked-about wrestlers online due to his release from WWE and his immediate response.
On Wednesday, Apr. 15 WWE made headlines when they released dozens of their employees during the global crisis caused by COVID-19. Drake Maverick quickly emerged as one of the most noteworthy cuts because of his emotional reaction on Twitter.
During the video, he revealed that WWE was still allowing him to compete in the Interim NXT Cruiserweight Title Tournament.
Asking a wrestler, who was just laid off, to come back and perform immediately seemed a bit egregious given the circumstances. However, it’s hard to tell how much of this is just a well-executed pivot from Maverick.
On the surface, it all seems pretty distasteful. After all, no one deserved to lose their job in the current climate with so much uncertainty on when things will get back to normal. The emotions Drake Maverick expressed last week were real, too real. Using them in a storyline without any plans to actually help him can be seen as exploitation, which is especially appalling because WWE created the situation he’s in.
Honestly, the company has handled everything around COVID-19 poorly. Continuing to ask their employees to put themselves at risk is bad enough. Then, they somehow got the governor of Florida to declare them an essential business in the face of a stay-at-home order. The situation reeks of murky political involvement and unethical business practices as is.
To add insult to injury, WWE turned around and fired 27 wrestlers, including two who traveled to Florida for Raw tapings, even though they’re still raking in huge profits. With all this bad press, it’s hard to understand why they would ask Maverick to continue to work NXT shows. It’s difficult to even see it as a privilege when you consider that he’s putting himself at risk.
With that said, Drake Maverick delivered his best match with WWE to date last week against Jake Atlas. He looked competent, gutsy, and full of fire. Sure, we all knew he was going to lose but he got us to invest in him for the first time this year.
This begs the question: is Maverick just cleverly making the best of a bad situation? As of today, WWE hasn’t rehired him and they don’t seem to have any plans to. Still, he currently has more upside than he has since he joined the company.
After all, WWE went out of their way to make him the butt of jokes on Raw, which left in a peculiar situation. They had him pee himself at Survivor Series and play this creepy Pepe Le Pew character who hit on Dana Brooke. After the latter, he got humiliated by Elias for his trouble.
So, he didn’t have much in-ring material to show for his time with the company. Now, he’s arguably in a better position to market himself to other promotions with two more matches to prove himself.
dark. Next. Lio Rush would fit the AAA landscape perfectly
There’s no denying that this is in poor taste on WWE’s part. Fortunately, Drake Maverick had the wherewithal to use this as an opportunity to promote himself. It’s really quite genius and it seems like it’s working well. Hopefully, this gives him a chance to sign with and succeed at another promotion.