Impact Wrestling Rumors: Eli Drake and Impact Wrestling involved in legal dispute

What's the story?

Per PWInsider, former Impact Wrestling World Champion Eli Drake could potentially be involved in a legal dispute with Impact Wrestling in the days to come.

Apparently, Impact Wrestling company representatives have lately insinuated to PWInsider that they could possibly pursue legal action against Drake sooner rather than later.

In case you didn't know...

Eli Drake (real name: Shaun Ricker) who has sporadically appeared in promotions such as the WWE; has been a mainstay of Impact Wrestling over the past few years; winning several titles during his time in the organization, including the Impact Wrestling World Title.

Regardless, Drake was recently booked to face female Impact Wrestling performer Tessa Blanchard in an inter-gender wrestling match at the "United We Stand" event.

In response to the aforementioned booking, Drake opened up on his views regarding inter-gender wrestling -- noting that he didn't want to face Blanchard, besides criticizing inter-gender wrestling.

The heart of the matter

It was on April 7th that Eli Drake's comments pertaining to his booking with Tessa Blanchard as well as his thoughts on inter-gender wrestling, culminated in Impact Wrestling terminating their contract with Drake.

Addressing the same, Impact Wrestling put forth the following statement --

"Impact Wrestling announced today that it has terminated its relationship with Shaun Ricker, known as 'Eli Drake.'"

On that note, PWInsider now reports that Impact Wrestling does intend to investigate a breach of contract claim against Drake.

Furthermore, it's indeed noteworthy that should Impact Wrestling pursue the aforesaid breach of contract claim against Drake, that in turn could prevent him from signing with other professional wrestling organizations until the legal issues are dealt with.

Moreover, although Drake's contract with the company extended till May 31st, 2019; Impact Wrestling chose to terminate said contract on April 7th, in light of his comments regarding the Tessa Blanchard booking and inter-gender wrestling.

Additionally, it's also being reported that the belief in Impact Wrestling; was that Drake was likely to sign with AEW (All Elite Wrestling), following the expiration of his Impact Wrestling contract.

What's next?

Fans can expect the real-life legal dispute between Eli Drake and Impact Wrestling to play out in the weeks to come.

While Impact Wrestling is yet to formally pursue a case against Drake, should they fight him in a court of law, it'll undoubtedly delay Drake's rumored AEW signing.

What are your thoughts on the Eli Drake vs. Impact Wrestling situation? Sound off in the comments!