LA Knight says WWE made him offers three years in a row while he was with TNA, and that when he finally went back ready to accept, WWE no longer wanted him.
Knight told the story on TMZ’s Inside the Ring ahead of his World Heavyweight Championship match against Roman Reigns at Money in the Bank on Saturday.
“They made offers to me three years in a row, but they just didn’t work with where I was and what I was doing. So the fourth year, when I went back and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m finally ready to take one of those,’ and they were like, ‘Oh no, we don’t want you now.’ Of course. Done. And so that was 2019 when that happened, and I ended up at NWA for a year.”
Knight wrestled in TNA as Eli Drake. He said he never considered quitting until the pandemic.
“The only time I ever considered the idea that it was over was during COVID, because then it was like I was on the outside looking in still… I’m thinking, like, they’re not gonna want to hire me brand new, even though I’ve been wrestling at that point forever, and I’m, you know, I’m a ready-made product. They’re not gonna want to hire me at 36 with no real major mainstream name and bring me in and do anything. And so at that point I was like, ‘There’s a good chance this is over.’
“And at that point I was like, ‘Well, screw it. If I think it’s over, then why don’t I make one last overture and just see what’s available?’… Sometime in the fall of 2020, we started talking, and there was some interest, and we were able to figure everything out… ‘Hey, here’s what I’ve been doing. Here’s pictures. Here’s videos. Here’s the shape I’m in, and here’s a brief paragraph of what I can offer you. What can you offer me?’ And so then we found ourselves, what, February 2021, I walk in the doors of NXT.”
Knight said he had no fallback plan.
“I legitimately had no plan B. Plan B was we’ll figure it out… There was nothing else that I had a passion about, and I know not everybody gets to work their passion. But then again, I don’t know, I’m kind of living proof that, like, if you continue pushing in that direction, and not just continue pushing in the direction in like a delusional way… if you put yourself in every possible advantage to take that thing on, I don’t think there’s any way that you can’t get there at some point.”
He said he would not let himself start training until he weighed more than 200 pounds, and that he decided he belonged in WWE after someone he knew got a dark match there. That led to his first WWE match in 2006.
Knight also listed the restaurants he worked at: Ruby Tuesday, TGI Fridays, Applebee’s and Cheesecake Factory. He called the Cheesecake Factory in Brentwood the worst serving job of his life.
“I think that was probably the one job that I had where I had to take out payday loans, like, a little too regularly to pay my rent… The way that they staff the restaurant, they would have like almost so many people, they didn’t want any of us having any more than three tables at a time. And if you’re not the closer there, you’re maybe leaving with 30, 40 bucks.”
Knight closed the interview with Saturday in mind: “Going from making $30 on a shift at Cheesecake Factory to World Champion. That ain’t too damn bad.”
The full card for Money in the Bank is in our preview. You can watch the full interview on TMZ’s YouTube channel below.
