Impact Star Refuses To Wrestle In Advertised Match

Yesterday, Impact Wrestling announced three new matches for its stacked United We Stand show yesterday, including a rare intergender match pitting former Impact World Champion Eli Drake against former Impact Knockouts Champion Tessa Blanchard.

The timing was interesting, coming just weeks after WWE announced an intergender match between Dean Ambrose and Nia Jax on a house show only to cancel it without explanation a few days later.

However, it seems Drake is less than pleased with the announcement, taking to Twitter and responding to a fan that said intergender matches “break the immersion of wrestling”.

Drake said that although he respect Impact and Tessa Blanchard – who he called “likely the greatest female talent in wrestling today”, he refused to wrestle her in a one-on-one encounter.

https://twitter.com/TheEliDrake/status/1099044040924753920

Did Impact announce the match without confirming it with Drake first? Or is this an angle designed to create tension between Drake and Blanchard prior to their United We Stand showdown?

If Drake genuinely is refusing to do the match then Impact will need to go back to the drawing board to find opponents for both him and Blanchard at United We Stand. There is also the possibility that Drake could receive disciplinary action for so publicly going against the promotion in such a manner.

Neither Impact nor Tessa have responded to the tweet yet so this story is still developing.

Do you think this is a work or is this how Eli Drake really feels about intergender wrestling? What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

• eli drake
• United We Stand
• Impact Wrestling
• tessa blanchard

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