Standing 6’2” and weighing nearly 300 lbs., JD Drake is intimidating. Whether stepping onto the lanes or walking down the entrance ramp for All Elite Wrestling (AEW) or Ring of Honor (ROH), he’s there for a fight.

Drake, real name James Brown (yes, for real), is focused, stubborn, and competitive — all attributes that have served him well as he attempts to make a living in two sports notorious for their high barrier to success (three if you count baseball — more on that later).

But Drake wouldn’t have it any other way.

Born in Shelby, North Carolina, Drake, 42, has lived most of his life in the region. This is the place where he fell in love with both bowling and wrestling. Raised predominantly by his grandparents, Drake said he first bowled at a young age, around 6 or 7 years old, when he went with his cousins. He was immediately hooked.

“I couldn’t wait to go back. I practically begged to go again,” he said.

His mother signed him up for a winter league that started at 10 a.m. on Saturdays. She told Drake she would only do it if he promised not to miss it.

As Drake tells it, “I never missed a-one.”

He was eventually coached by a man named Rayford Brown, who shaped the bowler he is today. What he came to love about the sport was its complexity. Drake said it wasn’t just about beating an opponent, it was “you against yourself,” having to learn how the oil works, make adjustments, and figure out all the other “invisible opponents” of bowling.

As his fondness for bowling grew, he never lost sight of his first sports obsession: baseball.

His high-school baseball coach taught him to be a “major-league level knuckleball pitcher.” 

The year after he graduated high school, he got a letter of recommendation from his coach, touting his skills in an attempt to walk on with the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, the Single-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.

Drake said with a laugh, “I was going to go try that, but hell, if you think wrestlers make little money, Single-A baseball players make less!”

He started wrestling that same year, first in a friend’s backyard before moving up the ladder of wrestling promotion hierarchy to the independent scene, known colloquially as “the indies.”

He began training under coaches David Rhymer and George South out of Charlotte, North Carolina, honing his in-ring skills. His grandfather was less than thrilled.

Knowing the difficulty Drake would face trying to make a name for himself in sports, his grandfather tried to convince him to get a “real job.” His grandfather gave him the timeless warning of “one in a million make it” to try to dissuade him. To argue his cause, Drake reminded his grandfather that being stubborn is a family trait.

Drake recalls, “I said, ‘You never stopped doing anything you wanted to do. You was hard-headed and made a living for your family. Why can I not be hard-headed and make a living for mine?’”

To quell the argument, Drake started selling advertisements across western North Carolina to restaurants, a “real job,” all while continuing to bowl and wrestle as much as he could. He left baseball behind.

The independent wrestling circuit is not for the weak, only the dedicated. Drake explained that, for the first seven or eight years of his career, his biggest payday was around $30 for one show in his home state of North Carolina. In order to make more, he would have to start traveling. These out-of-state shows paid for his travel though, so he was beginning to see a little profit from his ventures, around “$80 for two hours of work.”

It wasn’t until he got into Evolve where he started to see “good money rolling in.” Evolve was an independent wrestling promotion eventually purchased by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2020.

Numerous well-known wrestlers have passed through Evolve, as WWE used it as a scouting ground for talent. It’s here that Drake won the tag-team title under the name “The Lethal Enforcers” with his still tag-team partner, Anthony Henry, whom he has been with for nearly 10 years. They now call themselves the WorkHorsemen — a name not without its pedigree, given its nod to old-school stable The Four Horsemen (Arn Anderson, Ole Andrerson, Tully Blanchard, and Ric Flair.)

Things were starting to get busy for Drake, and the pig-headed drive to do what he wanted was paying off, a few hundred dollars at a time.

While still trying to bowl at least three days a week in leagues at home, Drake was on the road wrestling and starting to make a name for himself. He was now earning up to $250 a show with Evolve, and the indies upped their payout to up to $200 per show and covering all travel, even in North Carolina.

“The weeks I didn’t work with Evolve, I’d try to stay booked Friday to Sunday. That way, I could make money there, come home, and still do my sales job. I was on the grind all the time,” Drake explained.

The grind secured him a tryout with WWE. Unfortunately, they refused to medically clear him due to his knee, which had been injured several times, including tearing just about every ligament.

“They said my knee made me ‘a liability’ but I didn’t accept that,” recalls Drake, who tried to plead his case with them. He went to his own doctor for clearance, but was again turned down by WWE medical.

After a “We’ll be in touch” conversation, Drake said his next email was to AEW, a brand new promotion. Founded by businessman Tony Khan (his father, Shahid, owns the Jacksonville Jaguars and was the lead investor) in 2019 with the help of then-former but now-current (it’s a bit complicated, feel free to look it up) WWE superstar Cody Rhodes (son of former superstar Dusty), The Young Bucks (brothers Matt and Nick Jackson from ROH), and Kenny Omega of New Japan Pro-Wrestling fame, AEW was beginning to make its presence known in the industry.

They immediately responded and asked Drake to come work some dark matches. Dark matches are non-televised and happen before or after a live taping. They are often used to get the crowd warmed up and showcase newer/up-and-coming talent, giving them a chance to perform in front of larger crowds before working on television.

Drake said the response was overwhelmingly positive and Khan asked him to come back the next week. Drake responded with, “I’ll keep coming back as long as you’ll have me.” On February 12, 2021, Drake signed his contract with AEW and has been with the company on salary since, frequently appearing on television for both AEW and ROH, which Khan purchased in March 2022.

“I have nothing but good things to say about Tony and AEW. They’re going to have to run me off if they don’t want me anymore because I ain’t leaving,” Drake commented.

With a more consistent and predictable wrestling schedule, Drake is able to bowl most days of the week. He is a member of four different leagues now, but bowls for as many as seven when he’s asked to sub. But he doesn’t just bowl anymore. Currently residing in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Paradise Lanes, a family-run center owned by Richard and Lori Gamble, is Drake’s bowling home. More than that, it’s where Drake so happens to work another job in the J&H Bowling Academy Pro Shop. 

About four years ago, Drake asked owner Robby Hydrick to teach him how to drill equipment. He had looked into taking a pro-shop class, but given the cost, reconsidered. He and Hydrick worked out a deal: Hydrick would teach him to drill if he helped him out in the pro shop a couple days a week. Drake jokingly called this a big mistake, saying that he’s been “tinkering with his equipment ever since.”

Drake has been on staff with Brunswick for the past few years thanks to this pro-shop position. He posts videos to social media featuring Brunswick balls, something he plans to do more of in the future. J&H Bowling Academy is the same pro shop PBA and USBC Hall of Famer Tommy Jones operates out of by giving lessons. Drake said he often bowls with Jones and fellow North Carolinian Kyle Troup in local tournaments, jokingly adding that seeing their name on sign-up sheets often causes him “to reconsider bowling” because “what’s the point?”

Because of the amount of involvement with the sport, between bowling, representing Brunswick, and working in the pro shop, when he’s home (or not wrestling due to injury), it’s not uncommon for Drake to be at the bowling center seven days a week.

Thanks to that stubborn streak, Drake has found success in both passions. But those successes look very different to him. When it comes to his wrestling career, his proudest moments are strictly professional. Learning to moonsault — flipping backwards off the top rope and landing across your supine opponent — was a big accomplishment. Moonsaulting is a risky move for even small wrestlers. Big men in wrestling going to the top rope is always an impressive sight, so Drake kept at it.

Drake said, “The scariest part is climbing to the top rope because you don’t know if it’s going to hold you.”

He gradually worked his way up, getting comfortable with the maneuver from the middle rope before going to the top. He finally did it and now uses it as a finisher, a wrestler's signature move that they use to fully incapacitate their opponent towards the end of a match to win (usually). Drake assured that, “It’s terrifying. Every time. You never get over it.”

Facing fears like this and pushing himself to be better created an opportunity for his most memorable in-ring moment: Wrestling a tag match against legend Sting, at his request, before the latter retired.

In October 2023, Sting, the Icon, whose career spanned nearly 40 years in pro wrestling, announced his retirement. After a surprise AEW signing in December 2020, Sting formed a tag team with young talent Darby Allin. During his farewell tour, Sting went to Khan and requested to wrestle the WorkHorsemen in a tag match. Drake was incredulous.

“He specifically requested us and said, ‘You look like a safe hand.’ He asked me if I had a good chair shot (hitting an opponent with a metal folding chair) and I said, ‘Yeah, I think so.’ He asked me to give him everything I got, so I did,” Drake recalls.

After Drake hit Sting with the chair, he turned around and another wrestling legend, Ric Flair, was waiting to chop him across the chest. The cherry on top: This went down at the Bojangles Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, essentially making it a hometown match for Drake.

The WorkHorsemen lost the match, but winning was not important.

“I worked with two of my idols in the ring… I won’t ever forget it. It’s gonna be hard to top,” Drake admitted.

These professional accomplishments mean a lot to him, but Drake’s tone shifts when asked about his defining bowling moments. For him, it’s all about family.

When Drake is fully healthy, he’s on the road six days a week for a large part of the year. He said it’s not usual to be gone from home 225 to 250 days, which has been his norm for three-and-a-half years now. This sort of absence takes a toll, which is why, when asked about his favorite bowling moment, it’s no surprise he immediately jumps to his family’s success on the lanes, not his own.

One of his favorite moments is when his wife bowled her first 800 series with a ball Drake had just drilled for her.

“She is the picture of consistency,” he said, noting that the 800 series did not include a 300 game. In fact, none of her three 800 series have, but Drake thinks that makes them even more impressive.

They bowl together in league, and Drake also enjoys bowling with his two sons, ages 18 and 23, any time he gets the chance.

“Anytime I can bowl with them, I’m happy,” Drake commented.

While his oldest son isn’t into it that much, his youngest is a completely different story. He was recruited to bowl collegiately on a partial scholarship by Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina, where he is a freshman.

Drake said this was the beginning of bowling and wrestling coming full circle for him. “Wrestling made sure my family has everything it needs, but bowling has made sure my son is getting a college education. I couldn’t afford to send him to college otherwise,” Drake admits.

In Drake’s life, bowling and wrestling will forever be entangled. Where one leaves space, the other fills that void. Last year, Drake spent much of the year fighting injuries, but by some happenstance, he was never without both jobs at the same time.

“When I got hurt in wrestling and I was out for a year, I still bowled. When I blew up my bicep in bowling and I couldn’t bowl, I wrestled,” Drake recounted. And wrestling was there to support him through it all. Thanks to Drake’s AEW contract with Khan, he didn’t have to worry about how to get his family through his injury downtime on just his bowling-related earnings.

“When I was injured, he made sure my family ate. He paid my salary, he paid my medical bills,” Drake said of Khan.

As far as making a run about being a pro bowler if wrestling is ever off the table, Drake instantly says that’s not an option. “I’m just not good enough,” Drake said, explaining, “I was going to get my money from bowling by working in the pro shop or coaching.”

Drake said he enjoys sharing his well-earned knowledge with others — unsurprisingly, in both bowling and wrestling.

The parallels between bowling and wrestling are undeniable. Two sports with highly specialized skill sets. Two sports where many fail and few succeed. Above all, two sports where the “Everyman” is represented. And this is exactly what JD Drake is. The moniker “Blue Collar Badass” isn’t just a gimmick. Drake is the very embodiment of this title. He works hard, plays hard, and does it all for the sake of his family.

“People would tell me, ‘You’re not going to make it. You’re not going to do this.’ And I’d say, ‘Well, telling me I’m NOT going to is the easiest way to get me to [do it].’ I despise people telling me I can’t do it. I wanted to do it, so I did it,” Drake said with a shrug.

His catchphrase, “I’ll make it work,” is no coincidence either. That’s exactly what he’s done his whole life.

The Real Deal

Whether he is on the lanes or in the ring, JD Drake’s renowned and longstanding work ethic gets him far. As the below graphic indicates, he is no dilettante in either realm, with high accomplishments, favorites in both bowling and pro wrestling, and key accomplishments the likes of which equally avid bowlers would envy…
 

	Bowling		Wrestling
Favorite Ball	Raw Hammer Doom	Finisher	Drillbit/Moonsault
Favorite Bowler	Norm Duke	Favorite Wrestler	Arn Anderson/The Great Muta
Favorite City	Las Vegas	Favorite City	Charlotte/Atlanta
Number of 300s/800s	8/2	Notable titles	Evolve Tag Team Champion with Anthony Henry