Eli Cottonwood

Kipp Christianson (born September 30, 1974) is an American retired professional wrestler and basketball player. He is best known for his time in the WWE and Florida Championship Wrestling where he wrestled under the ring name Eli Cottonwood during NXT Season 2. His Pro (mentor) was John Morrison.

Professional wrestling career
Kipp Christianson began competing in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) in 2008 under his real name. On July 15, 2009, he made his debut match as Eli Cottonwood where he defeated Fred Rosser who would later become Darren Young. The gimmick of being recently reintroduced to society from the Kelloggs Sanitarium. He was managed by Aksana in November 2009 and turned face.

On June 1 2010, John Morrison announced that he would be mentoring Eli Cottonwood in the second season of NXT. Cottonwood, however, was the second person eliminated from the competition, and was eliminated on the July 27 episode of NXT.

After NXT, Cottonwood returned to FCW. He lost to Big E Langston after Langston ended Cottonwood's undefeated FCW streak on November 4, 2010.

On December 5, 2011, Cottonwood returned to WWE in a dark match on Monday Night Raw won by Dolph Ziggler.

In April 2012, Cottonwood turned heel by aligning himself with Bray Wyatt formerly known as Husky Harris in NXT Season 2. Cottonwood requested, and was granted his release from WWE in June 2012.

After wrestling, Cottonwood owned a yoga studio in Las Vegas called Kipp's Life Flip from 2016 to 2018 and then co-owned  Florida Hardcore Wrestling from 2016-2017