When LA Knight debuted on the main roster as Max Dupri and Maximum Male Model’s talent agent, fans were confused and angry.
It seemed unconscionable that anyone would change the character, but it was also something that was pretty regular on the main roster as Vince would see things a different way or have other ideas.
Knight sold his new character well, but fans remained disgruntled as it felt like we were being shortchanged, and in an interview with dailymail.com he talked about the gimmick change came over concern that he’s 40 years old.
Once Vince retired and Triple H took over WWE Creative, Knight was repackaged into the persona that made him an NXT star and he’s quickly proven to be one of the company’s top talents.
Setting the record straight
Knight got his big break after impressing in a dark match, but then his age came up.
“I come up for a dark match, I get the attention of the right people; ‘hey, who is this guy?’ but then the age thing comes up – [whispers] ‘oh no, he’s 40, danger’. But I’m not the average 40-year-old. I haven’t gone through the ringer. I haven’t had a bunch of surgeries or injuries, knock on that wood. I’ve lived a good, youthful life in a certain sense and I’ve taken care of myself in a way I would say most don’t.
“And also, I look a certain way where obviously I’ve got somebody’s attention. But that number came up and it was like ‘well ok, maybe we make him a manager.’ So some things happened there. It was not my cup of tea and definitely I don’t think it was for me. But somehow, there I was. Some things happened that we don’t need to go into and then eventually LA Knight was back.”
Feeling a change was needed, he sat down with Triple H about bringing the LA Knight character back, and he acknowledged the pressure of going from an audience of under a million to two million on Smackdown.
“Yeah, I was kinda pushing for it but didn’t know if it was really a possibility at that point because we just established this thing to this larger audience. The NXT audience is what it is, just under a million or whatever, and now you’re looking at over two million for Smackdown. So there’s a bunch of people who had never even seen LA Knight before and they’d only seen this other thing. So now, can we just change gears? So now, I think it’s a testament to his trust and a testament to my abilities to be able to turn that corner in such short order and have people not even barely remember there was another.”
Until Logan Paul announced he’s in the Money in the Bank Ladder Match, Knight was the fan favorite to win, and we have a feeling it’s going to come down to one of the two of them for that contract.
It would be cool to see Knight win and take his shot at a championship. What do you think? Will Knight get the briefcase? Let us know in the comments below.
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