Death, taxes, and Roman Reigns retaining his title; some things are truly inevitable. Heading into Crown Jewel, LA Knight said and did all the right things. He shot his shot on the mic, did media rounds, and even kissed a few babies for good measure in the hopes of proving he could be the guy for WWE.

And yet, it didn't matter; none of it mattered. It didn't matter that LA Knight has been the hottest act in WWE since the spring, with huge, organic reactions all over the country. It didn't matter how many t-shirts he sold or could have continued to sell, and it didn't even matter how impactful his story could be, especially if WWE played into the ultimate underdog narrative that brought him to Crown Jewel.

No, much like the twenty or so other performers who challenged Roman Reigns over this current run, Knight came up short in his main event moment, and the worst part is, he wasn't even particularly protected before taking the pin. Now sure, did Jimmy Uso and Solo Sikoa come out to help Roman Reigns? Duh, at this point, it's hard to even watch Reigns in the ring without assuming his Bloodline buddies will be close behind. While it could have been a situation where Knight was on top for much of the match only to get screwed in the end; other than Uso placing his uncle's foot on the ropes to break up a pin, this is about as clean of a Reigns win as you will see, and about as decisive of a loss issued to a challenger as has existed during this reign.

How does LA Knight rebound from this? Does he take some time off to lick his wounds? Or maybe he'll return on SmackDown and pretend that none of this happened? Or, better yet, maybe he'll immediately enter a program with Logan Paul, which could culminate in a United States Championship win at Survivor Series in Chicago? Either way, fans who hoped to see Knight secure the win likely left Crown Jewel feeling disappointed, and the much larger group of fans who wanted to see Knight retain his mystique, even in loss, are likely disappointed too, as the “L” in LA Knight now stands for “loser,” and he'll have to overcome that harsh reality in order to recapture the hype the “Yeah!” movement cultivated over the summer.

LA Knight is proud of his relationship with John Cena.

In the lead-up to Crown Jewel, LA Knight stopped by Inside The Ropes to discuss his path through the WWE Universe and how he became good friends with John Cena, a man who is borderline the antithesis of his own professional wrestling journey. Though the duo didn't start off on the right foot, Knight now considers the “GOAT” a friend.

“It's crazy because again I said this back when I was in NXT and I won the Million Dollar Championship,” LA Knight told Inside The Ropes via Fightful. “There are certain goals that I had written out for myself, that I knew were tangible, attainable (and) all that. Then, there are certain goals that I didn't even think were things that were available or on the table at the time. So this is another one of those things where I hadn't anticipated me and John Cena would team up to take on one of the biggest things going right now, which is The Bloodline. So, you know, a pretty sweet deal.”

LA Knight was equally complimentary of Cena in an interview with The Ringer, noting that, in his opinion, no one embodies their gimmick more than the “GOAT.”

“The only thing I could really obviously pinpoint that to is [that] his whole thing is, ‘never give up. ‘Hustle, loyalty, respect'—all that stuff,” LA Knight told The Ringer “Well, nobody's hustled harder than I have, and nobody's lived and embodied ‘never give up' more than I have. I mean, if you just look at the span of everything that I've done and the length of time, the things that I've gone through and things like that, I haven't given up on this thing that I knew I had, and this thing I had to offer.”

Though LA Knight ultimately didn't secure the career-defining win he was looking for at Crown Jewel and had to watch his pal get absolutely eliminated by Solo Siko a few matches earlier in the night, in the end, becoming friends with John Cena is a pretty solid consolation prize, especially if he really is considering hanging up his jorts for good.