LA Knight Recalls When He Realized His Character Was Getting Over, Working With Bray Wyatt

During a recent interview with Insight With Chris Van Vliet, WWE Superstar LA Knight discussed when he realized he was significantly getting over with the fans several years ago. He also spoke about working with Bray Wyatt, heading into their Mountain Dew Pitch Black Match at Royal Rumble 2023. Below are some highlights from Insight:

LA Knight on When he Noticed His Reactions & Pops His Character Was Getting

“In March of 2023 was the first time I noticed, but noticing it continue to pick up and continuing to progress would have been just all through that spring and summer. But the crazy thing is, I think there were a lot of people leaning on the idea that that was going to be a fad. There were a lot of people leaning on the idea that was going to be a flavor of the month, that that was going to be a passing thing, and here we are, 2026, I walk in the ring last night. Now, you could argue, yeah, maybe the reactions aren’t quite as big as they were at that time. I’m gonna tell you why that is in a second, but if you notice last night, I still circle around, I get the thing, and I stand there, and they still chant the name. Now, you could say that’s programming, you could say that’s passion, you could say it’s whatever it is.

“Bottom line is, it’s still there. However, the reason it’s not as big as it was is because right now I’m just kind of a man without a country, so to speak. I don’t have a set trajectory at this moment. If you look at last year, last summer, when I started, all of a sudden me and Seth were going for the title, and it’s me and The Vision. There it was renewed again. So it’s a matter of just making sure that I’ve got direction, I’ve got somewhere to go, and I’ve got somewhere that people care about, and something that people can sink their teeth into that then takes it up from an 8 up to a 10 and beyond. So I think that’s really just the key to the whole thing, and it’s kind of crazy that it’s kept on this long when I don’t think a lot of people are counting on that being the case.”

On Not Having an Exact Trajectory

“I’m not a notoriously great planner. I don’t have an exact trajectory, necessarily. I think I just look at it and I go, is it not a crime from an outsider perspective, even from an insider perspective, but I guess a couple of different perspectives looking at this from. But from an outsider perspective, you look at, here’s this force that came in, and I took this thing by storm, and people make comparisons. They say, Steve Austin got real hot, and Daniel Bryan got real hot, and you could even say Oba Femi, whatever. You look at these things, but all these guys, by the time they had gotten hot and started getting the big pops, they had had big victories, big pushes, they had had titles. Even Austin, Austin didn’t really start getting the mega pops until he was already champion, like it started building up, and he was the Intercontinental Champion, he was Tag Team Champion, all that stuff, but it wasn’t like the crazy mega pops that you got in like 98, 99.

“Daniel Bryan, same thing, he’d already been multiple time Intercontinental Champion, Tag Team Champion. What was I doing? I was middle bottom of the card, getting beat every week. But I had 30 seconds, 60 seconds to talk, and when you look at it from I’m able to take that, and then become the number one merch seller. I’m able to be, you know, all of a sudden now I’m the favorite for Money in the Bank. All of a sudden now I’m the guy that the people are demanding, not because I was pushed in that direction, not because the machine got behind me. At some point, the machine had to get behind me. You can’t deny that at some point. You wanna talk about undeniable? That was me, but at the same time, there’s still some resistance.”

On Working With Bray Wyatt

“It was good. It was good because it was a challenge. It was very different. It’s weird to work with the supernatural type stuff, because with my character, especially, I don’t want to sell it too much, because it feels so silly, but at the same time, I don’t want to **** on what he’s doing, so it’s like, you got to find that balance, it’s a nice little challenge to walk that line, to be like, I’m not afraid of this ****. But then he does some ****, and you can be like wait, okay, all right, that kind of gets me. You just got to find the right way to walk that line, and he was just like he was cool off the bat, he got me, I got him, and it was just a matter of just again finding the way to walk that line and make those styles work.”

LA Knight is currently competing in this year’s King of the Ring tournament. He will face off against Jey Uso, Royce Keys, and Finn Balor in an opening round matchup later on.