Bully Ray and Dave LaGreca have both spent time criticizing LA Knight on Busted Open. Now they think WWE has run out of reasons to hold him back.
The two worked through the scenario on the show, starting from the assumption that Seth Rollins beats Roman Reigns for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam, a result Bully Ray said the story demands.
“You’ve heard me say for 10 years, wins and losses don’t matter, except when a win or a loss matters, and I think a win for Seth Rollins at SummerSlam really matters,” Bully Ray said.
From there, LaGreca said the follow-up writes itself, and that it would not go the way WWE might expect.
“If Seth Rollins wins this championship and his first program or his first match is with LA Knight, the WWE universe is going to be 100% behind LA Knight, and there’s no doubt in my mind,” LaGreca said.
Bully Ray agreed, and said WWE may already be laying that groundwork after Knight’s recent segments.
“I would not be shocked to see them use Seth Rollins as your champion to get LA Knight over,” Bully Ray said. “I think LA Knight has the best chance of succeeding chasing Seth Rollins.”
Asked what he would say if Triple H put the question to him directly, Bully Ray laid out the segment.
“I like the idea of having him challenge Seth Rollins for the WWE Championship. Let’s start from square one,” Bully Ray said. “You could have Seth Rollins go out there. I’m gonna be a fighting champion. I’m the first one who had this championship. I was the workhorse. I made this championship. I’m a revolutionary. Whatever it is, you know. And whoever wants the first shot, you got it. LA Knight’s music. Square one.”
LaGreca’s reaction was immediate. “The place would go f*cking insane,” he said. “The Monday Night Raw right after SummerSlam. You have Seth Rollins cutting that promo and LA Knight’s music hits.”
Both hosts pointed to the crowd as the deciding factor, with LaGreca saying the reaction has gotten impossible to ignore.
“He is now getting the biggest responses in arenas and on shows than anybody else,” LaGreca said. “This is the first time, seriously, since LA Knight has been on the main roster, where I was like, I can see him having a world heavyweight championship around his waist.”
Bully Ray put a name to the pattern.
“We’ve seen this happen before in the WWE, where fans are behind a certain talent, but it’s obvious the talent is not reaching the level of success that the fans would like to see them reach, thus they start cheering louder. The Daniel Bryan effect,” Bully Ray said. “Maybe that’s what we’re going to see with LA Knight.”
LaGreca made the same comparison from the other direction, saying fans have hit the wall the way they did a decade ago.
“The only thing I can compare it to is Daniel Bryan, where the fans are like, enough, we’ve had enough of this. Now we want this guy,” LaGreca said. “The fans have had enough with the same old, same old. They want something new. I think the answer is LA Knight.”
Bully Ray was not entirely uncritical. He questioned how much backing Knight has behind the scenes, pointing to footage of Triple H dressing him down at gorilla position on WWE Unreal, and said Knight has to carry some responsibility for a career that has repeatedly stalled.
“LA Knight’s been around a long time in this industry, and he’s always gotten just so far,” Bully Ray said. “He has to be a common denominator in why he’s just gotten so far.”
LaGreca pushed back on the Unreal clip. “I kind of compare that to a coach chewing out a player on the sidelines,” he said. “Certain coaches know that if I chew this player out, he’s going to step up and he’s going to show me more.”
Bully Ray also floated a theory for why Knight keeps getting held at arm’s length.
“I think WWE has been skittish because something always happens with LA Knight out there that makes people go, either he fumbles a line, or he trips on a rope, or something happens at a very inopportune time,” Bully Ray said. “You know, Steve Austin wasn’t the most graceful guy out there either. Let’s get behind him. Let’s give this three months of storytelling.”
Where he landed was a straightforward ask: commit to him and find out.
“Let’s give him another go at it. Let’s see what we really got here. Let’s really get behind him on this one. Let’s really write for him. Let’s really put him in scenarios to succeed,” Bully Ray said. “If creative gets behind this guy, the way the crowd has been reacting to him, I think they’ll have something positive on their hands.”
Knight is booked in a six-man tag at SummerSlam, which takes place across two nights on August 1 and 2 in Minneapolis. Both hosts said he should be going over there.
“LA Knight would be very fresh and very new, despite the fact that he’s been around for a while in the WWE,” Bully Ray said.
