LA Knight Explains How Frustration Leads To His Authenticity In WWE
LA Knight is a rising star within WWE, garnering phenomenal crowd reactions in recent weeks on "WWE SmackDown." Making an appearance on "My Love Letter to Wrestling," the 40-year-old Knight detailed his journey to WWE from Impact Wrestling, including a frustrating mistake along the way.
"[Going to Impact] was the first time I'd seen real money ... in wrestling," Knight said. "Yeah, there's a lot of fondness there. There's also a lot of frustration that I didn't leave sooner. And not because there was an issue there, necessarily, but just because I had the opportunity to come [to WWE] earlier. But I was lured in by that evil, evil money."
The WWE star said that he eventually felt he reached his limit in Impact, and he realized he would be able to maximize his potential by going to the larger company. However, Knight revealed that he still carries a lot of frustration, partially because he says there are people who have tried to "kill" his career.
"There's a lot of anger, there's a lot of frustration, but there's also a lot of vindication at this point," Knight continued. "[Wrestling] is my biggest love and my biggest frustration."
Putting His Frustration To Good Use
According to Knight, he's able to use some of those negative feelings as motivation, pushing him further in his career and helping him stay true to himself while on TV.
"I believe every single word I'm saying," Knight said. "Maybe that sounds psycho to some people, maybe it doesn't. But I'm so drawn into what I'm doing, and there's so much real emotion from the last 10 to 20 years where I'm just like, 'I should've been taking over the world so long ago.' It's all as real as can be. The journey, in a lot of ways — even though I was broke, and I didn't have a car for years, and I was getting eviction notices and stuff like that — it was a rough go. But there's some strange fondness that I do have for that struggle. Maybe it's that weirdness, where I need that adversity or that negativity to push up against."
Whatever motivation Knight has been using, it seems to be working like a charm. Knight's current run with WWE began in 2021, and the former Eli Drake has quickly risen up the ranks, creating a genuine connection with the crowd in the process.