As you may or may not know, LA Knight is old.
Despite only joining the WWE main roster two years ago in January of 2022, the “Megastar” is already 41 and will turn 42 in November, right around when Paul “Triple H” Levesque will take fans back to WarGames at the Elimination Chamber.
Why, you may ask, did it take so long for Knight to make it to WWE developmental? Well, as it turns out, the decision to remain on the indies during his mid-30s had more to do with his financial situation than any belief that he's “better than NXT,” as he explained to Chris Van Vliet in an interview on Insight.
“Yeah, a lot of it. I had overstayed my welcome. It wasn't overstaying my welcome, but I had overstayed bad booking. I had overstayed misuse. I've overstayed multiple regime changes, and so with that being the case, it was just like, man, it was like, start, stop, start, stop, start, stop. Then, when they did throw me the bone and gave me the title, it was like they still didn't really feature me as the main event, and I'm like, what is this? It’s like a consolation prize or something. At that point, I was like, alright, I have to leave. I have to go, but the only reason I was staying was because I had been broke for so d**n long, and I'm now making good money for the first time. I had never seen money like this before, so I'm just like, I can't pass this up. I need this at least for two or three years before I can go and take the risk in my mind from the first time around that is going back to WWE, and for what I was promised, it was not, ‘Hey, you're going straight to NXT TV.’ It was, ‘We're gonna bring you into the PC, and then you prove yourself,’ and that's because I left with heat the first time,” LA Knight explained to Chris Van Vliet via Wrestling Headlines.
“So understandably, so I guess to a degree, but at the same time, I'm thinking like, I'm on TV. I'm ready-made. I'm proven in other places. I know how to do TV. I know how to do this stuff. Now look, WWE is always different from other places. It's a whole other level as far as TV production and all that stuff, but not to toot my own horn, but if you look at what I would do on Impact or whatever else, I think that I knew how to work TV above average from most of the people that were there. I know how to work the cameras but also interact with the crowd and the house and stuff like that whereas I think a lot of people struggle with that, especially guys who come from the indies because they want to go to the crowd. Some people only do the camera, and then they never, you know, look at the crowd or that stuff. So it's finding those balances and stuff like that. So I'm just like, why am I only going into the PC, but again, it was because we want to make sure you're a team player, this kind of stuff and whatnot.”
Whoa, interesting stuff, right? Well, wait, it gets even more interesting as LA Knight then went on to how he eventually returned to the PC and was able to overcome any heat from his first run in order to land the shot and gimmick that would eventually propel him to “Megastardom.”
LA Knight explained how he reached Triple H about an NXT return.
So, after saving up enough money to have some savings in the bank, LA Knight revealed how he was able to parlay the work he put in as a member of Impact and NWA in order to become a viable prospect for WWE once more. Though it wasn't easy, Knight was ultimately able to get in contact with Paul “Triple H” Levesque and rekindled his NXT career when he needed it most.
“So finally when I did make the jump over there, there was a little bit of, not necessarily negotiation, but it was just kind of like, I knew I was going to have to take a pay cut coming in, but I was willing to take the pay cut on the bet that I could turn it into much more because I had hit the ceiling basically in Impact and I had an awesome time and NWA for that little bit that we were able to do before the pandemic hit, but I knew that I needed to be, although I'm gonna tell you during the pandemic 2020, I remember having a conversation with my girlfriend and just being like, ‘I gotta accept that this thing was just over and nobody's taking me now at 37 or whatever it was at the time. I just gotta make whatever money I can in any of these other companies.'”
“I had been given Triple H’s email and his phone number just before the pandemic started. I was like, well, what am I going to do with this, I have no relationship with this guy. Like, I mean, we knew of each other, and like, I had spoken to him once or twice the first time I was in NXT, but like, I didn't have a relationship where I was like, I could just hit him up. So my relationship was with talent relations, and I'm like, I'm probably gonna get heat if I go over their heads, so I'm just not gonna mess with it. But then when I was at the point where I'm like, ‘This ride is probably over, I was like, well, screw heat. Who gives a sh*t about heat. I'm messaging him. So I was like, ‘Hey, look, this is what I've been doing for the last year that ended. Here's pictures, here's videos’, whatever, and then I just let talent relations know, “Hey, look, by the way, I sent this email, whatever. Just giving you a heads-up,' and that's where it was just kind of like, ‘Well, we got to talk about some things.’”
Where would the professional wrestling world be today if LA Knight never made that email, or worse, if Triple H never responded? Would he still be talking about the “Shoes of a Champion” in NWA, or would Eli Drake have landed in AEW, where his fit would have been interesting, to say the least? Fortunately, fans don't have to wonder, as LA Knight is here, he's over as all heck, and unless he doesn't agree to a long-term contract with WWE moving forward, he won't be going anywhere.
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