LA Knight Lifts Lid On Frustration With WWE Booking

LA Knight has opened up about his WWE struggles.

For long stretches of 2023, LA Knight was one of the hottest stars in WWE. Cody Rhodes might have been the most beloved babyface on the roster as he chased World Championship glory, but Knight was easily in the number two spot.

However, despite getting monster reactions from the crowd, Knight was forced to wait for his moment in the sun, not challenging Roman Reigns for the World Title until November.

While appearing on The Ringer’s Wrestling Show, Knight said he was unhappy at being made to wait, recalling his frustration almost boiling over around WrestleMania 39.

“There was a lot of frustration at that time. I’m getting these big reactions and there were weeks of, ‘there’s nothing for you to do.’ I’m like, ‘Was anybody listening? Was anybody watching?’ There was all this hesitation. ‘This might not be real, this might be a fluke.’

There was one time, I blew up a year ago. We were in LA, SmackDown, the night before WrestleMania. I was in the Andre The Giant Battle Royal. I had already been getting some pretty big reactions for the last three weeks to a month, but now we were in LA and the place was all for me in that battle royal. Coming back, I passed straight through Gorilla, didn’t say anything, shake hands or nothing.

I ran into one of the social media guys and he was like, ‘Man, you’re over out there.’ I was so happy with the reaction that was out there, but simultaneously pissed off because of it. It was so big and I felt like nobody was listening. I got back there, and when that guy said that, I was like, ‘You better effin tell somebody!’

I went and walked off and just started pacing the hallways like a tiger. I just went to the most empty part of the hallway I could find. I didn’t want to talk to anybody.”

LA Knight Feared WWE Had Missed His Moment

Expanding further, Knight recalled feeling WWE wouldn’t capitalise on his popularity at all. The star eventually reached his breaking point at Money In The Bank.

Then we get to Money in the Bank. ‘I have an idea, I want to do this, this and this.’ I remember someone saying, ‘You have to be over to do that.’ I’m like, ‘Are you not watching! Are you not paying attention!’ I feel like a douche saying that. To put myself over to that degree to be like, ‘You know I’m over, right?’ It fills me with douche chills.

At the same time, how, how, how, are you not noticing? We get to Money in the Bank, the reactions are nuts, we move on from there, and finally it’s like, ‘We’re going to have to do something.’ Finally, it was moving in that direction…

I understand the idea of milking it and not giving people things too soon because if you do that, you get the Superman treatment of ‘this is the handpicked guy,’ and they rebel against that. I definitely didn’t want to go too fast in that regard, but I’m also thinking, ‘Holy sh*t, we’re dragging our feet right now, we’re going to lose them.'”

Tensions between LA Knight and AJ Styles have already boiled over ahead of WrestleMania 40, with the pair getting into a wild brawl at a press event.

The pair are set to meet in the ring on night two of the spectacular.

H/t to Fightful