After traveling up and down the indie roads for the better part of 20 years, Eli Drake was finally afforded a chance to test his game against the rest of the best of the best the world has to offer in WWE, where he was assigned to NXT under the moniker LA Knight.

Unsurprisingly, Knight's fit in the promotion was like a glove.

Largely keeping the character he developed in Impact and NWA intact, including his “let me talk to ya,” “yeah!” and “nah nah!” catchphrases, Knight quickly became a favorite with the fans, had great feuds with Dexter Lumis and Cameron Grimes, and even won the Million Dollar Championship in a short-lived but very fun pairing with “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase.

Discussing his time in developmental with the Daily Mail ahead of Money in the Bank, Knight explained why he took his time in developmental so seriously and how the fans seemed to appreciate his commitment to the bit.

“That’s the funny thing. For the better part of ten years, even now, I’d been working as though I was here. There was never a day where I slacked, there was never a day where I was like, “ah I can just go in and phone it in” because to me, there was that one percent chance that maybe somebody from here would be watching. And they probably never were! But in my head, I was working like I’m there,” LA Knight said.

“For me, I wanted to watch and see what the other guys on that WWE TV are doing, because I want to still stand out from them, I don’t want to do the same moves as them, I don’t want to say or dress or do whatever they are doing. I wanted to make sure that when I came in, I was ready to hit the ground running because I already had a package that worked and fit and was different. It kind of made it easy in that sense. I didn’t really have to do any extra preparation. Just continue being and doing who and what I am and I’m gonna roll right in.”

Though you don't often see performers in their late 30s get assigned to NXT, especially in an era where the promotion was prioritizing young prospects fresh out of college, the NFL, or another athletic pipeline, LA Knight proved that there isn't one singular way to make a WWE Superstar and by embracing what made Eli Drake special on the indies, the man born Shawn Richer found a way to get himself over in the biggest promotion of them all.

LA Knight knows about earning big prizes in Ladder matches.

Though LA Knight hasn't wrestled many matches on the main roster, cruelly spending the first chapter of his SmackDown career as a manager for the Maximum Male Models, the 40-year-old from Hagerstown, Maryland has a bit of a history in Ladder matches, which he will also be competing in at Money in the Bank.

Discussing his past in the match in an interview with Digital Spy, Knight noted that in NXT, he won the Millions Dollar Championship in a Ladder match with Cameron Grimes, and at Money in the Bank live from the O2 Arena in London, he will try to do the same.

“I rolled in here about two years ago or so and I had a lot of goals in mind. I had a lot of things that I wanted to do,” LA Knight said via Fightful. “Then there's some goals that popped up that I haven't even considered, that I didn't even know were possible. The Million Dollar Championship, that happened, I was on top of the ladder. So now we roll into 2023, another ladder match. So with all those goals in mind, I've got a lot to do still. I've got a lot to prove both to myself and the world and so the O2 is a good time to make that happen.”

Though the challenge presented by Money in the Bank is much greater than his effort at Takeover: In Your House, as he'll have to beat six other opponents instead of just one, LA Knight has more years of in-ring experience than anyone else in the match, even more so than the “Emperor of Lucha Libre,” Santos Escobar. Even if he's the least high-flying member of the match, LA Knight has something his teammates don't, and that's enough charisma to get the whole crowd in the O2 saying “LA Knight, yeah!”