Take everything you’ve ever loved about a wrestler on the microphone. Take that, and focus that on LA Knight.
There’s a charisma about him that renders ceilings obsolete. He doesn’t scream, he speaks not softly. Instead, he is simply loud and confident.
He seems like a cartoon character with his larger-than-life persona when he speaks into a microphone, yet feels authentic. He feels like a narcissist who believes in their hype, but when a narcissist is most convincing, they can fool everyone. This is a man I’m convinced could sell even the most skeptical of people a soggy stack of facial tissues. I don’t know if I’m more concerned that I could be that specific just for an example, or if I’m worried that I could believe it.
And maybe Shaun Ricker the man could pull these things off, or maybe he’s just a confident speaker and an average man filling a role. That’s why people loved him as Eli Drake in Impact, NWA, and the wider independent wrestling scene because he has that aura and charisma that just swallows crowds whole.
When I first heard him speak on NWA Powerr during the company’s time on YouTube, when it was competent and had stars like Nick Aldis, Thunder Rosa, Eddie Kingston, and Ricky Starks, I could see it in him. I saw what I saw in the aforementioned talents – someone who could easily main event, and if he couldn’t earn a company’s trust and support, he’d make the crowd turn against that company with ease.
Imagine my excitement when he returned to WWE – oh, you probably don’t remember him in WWE, his time as Slate Randall. That’s fine, nobody does. Nobody remembers Slate, but how apropos that this failure was turned into something new under a new slate (heh).
So, back to his retur- um, debut, as LA Knight at NXT Takeover: Vengeance Day, the talkative superstar quickly placed himself in the conversation, absorbing all of his time to keep all eyes and ears on him.
It was with his talents and the talents of The Million Dollar Man and Cameron Grimes that made something as silly as winning the Million Dollar Belt that gave wider audiences a glimpse at how great his heel role was.
Yet, in NXT, he proved he was capable enough to be a babyface and showed his fighting spirit. This was a short run, but it showed an underlying potential with the current WWE crowd scene loving him. In the lead-up to NXT WarGames at the start of the new era of NXT, Knight and his cohorts in the titular match conversed about the threat of the new stars coming in. Pete Dunne stood mute, while Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa expressed doubt in themselves, but it was LA Knight who rallied them, spoke inspiration into their souls, and brought about that ethereal sensation to heart, body, and mind, that yes, you CAN do this. On the night of the match, each four men fought like hell, like old tigers sensing the end is near. They were the gunmen making their last stand as the new cowboys were setting in to a town not big enough for each of them.
WWE soon called him to the main roster, and fans that knew him were excited. Finally, a talent made for a big star was about to thrive.
Then, Max Dupri happened.
LA Knight was no longer the brash, arrogant talker that was well-rounded in the ring. He was the leader of Maximum Male Models, where he managed his clients ma.çé and mån.sôör, names I had to copy and paste to get the format right. You’re welcome.
Dupri demanded there be an emphasis on the second syllable of his last name and that his clients had to be pronounced a certain way. He’d end his sentences not shouting with an emphatic “Yeah!”, but a calm, creepy, whispered “Yes.” He was almost as flamboyant as his models, and I personally think he did well in this weird role, but this wasn’t him and it never was. If I were a new fan of wrestling, I’d think the dude was a joke and would not be invested in him. Since I wasn’t, I knew exactly what he could be. This was no fault of his own at all, but of Vince McMahon, who was frustrated for some reason that Dupri wasn’t hitting the way he wanted.
When you clip the wings of a bird and expect it to fly when you throw it, you’re going to get a dud. Let that bird keep its wings, and it will fly, freely and majestically across the blue sky among the clouds.
It was when McMahon had “retired” from the company that Knight won the crowds over once he broke his former persona away and began touting that familiar energy of LA Knight, and quickly turned heel, berating the audience and anyone he happened to face.
When it came time for him to face the newly returned and equally gifted speaker Bray Wyatt, Knight carried the feud. Wyatt, still finding his identity, was not the high point of the feud – Knight was. As fans sat through moments of eerie segments and promos that, while sometimes beautiful, felt aimless and directionless. For Knight to keep anyone invested even through the eyeball-torturing Mountain Dew Pitch Black Match at 2023’s Royal Rumble is no easy feat. On-screen he may have lost, backstage he was championed.
Soon after, not much happened for him with the gift of gab, yet any time he did show up, he’d rock the microphone as he always does.
However, heading into an event season that seems tailored and destined for him, Knight qualified for the Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match at the titular show, defeating Montez Ford in the process.
In the weeks that followed, Knight would decimate his opponents on the microphone, reducing them to ash with verbal ability on his own, lashing his tongue and belittling anyone in his way – even Logan Paul.
The growth of LA Knight over such a short period of time is crazy but well-deserved. Crowds just love him and chew up any time he’s on the screen. Every time he points his finger left-to-right, they’ll chant “L.A. KNIGHT” alongside him and will yell “YEAH!” with him. The crowd is fully invested and this isn’t half of the ability with his voice that he’s used on the main roster. He hasn’t inspired hope within everyone’s soul in a babyface era like his late NXT run. He hasn’t embarrassed a main event talent as a heel yet (though I’d have loved to see him tear down The Bloodline), but those days are to come.
And though he’s an entertaining act, there’s a beautiful message in all the hype and humor, and style. You can make it through dropped balls and swing for home runs, no matter how many don’t like you or don’t believe in you, you can make it and come out headstrong and far more confident. Confidence, that’s a dangerous thing, and that’s not a matter of opinion.
That’s a fact of life.
