LA Knight on Why He’s Not a Tribute Act, Comparisons With John Cena

– During a recent interview with The Ringer, WWE Superstar LA Knight discusses his career influences, not being a tribute act, and comparisons with John Cena. Below are some highlights:

On his influences and how he’s not a tribute act: “I’m not trying to be a tribute act to anybody. Do I draw from some of that? Sure I do. Did Flair draw from Nature Boy Buddy Rogers? Sure he did. Did Hogan draw from Dusty Rhodes? Did he draw from Superstar Billy Graham? Of course he did.”

On some of the feedback he gets from veterans: “One of the greatest things that I kind of get from time to time is getting older guys, especially, who just go, ‘Man, I haven’t watched in years, but you’ve gotten me back into it. You give me that feeling that I used to get from it’, and I go, ‘OK, good. Then I’m doing my damn job.’”

LA Knight on comparisons between himself and John Cena: “The only thing I could really obviously pinpoint that to is [that] his whole thing is, ‘never give up. Hustle, loyalty, respect’—all that stuff. Well, nobody’s hustled harder than I have and nobody’s lived and embodied ‘never give up’ more than I have. I mean, if you just look at the span of everything that I’ve done and the length of time, the things that I’ve gone through and things like that, I haven’t given up on this thing that I knew I had and this thing I had to offer.”

At today’s WWE Crown Jewel, LA Knight challenges Roman Reigns for the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship. The show will be broadcast live on Peacock starting at 1:00 pm EST. The show is being held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.