LA Knight Explains Why His WWE Rise Is Different Than Daniel Bryan Or Steve Austin’s

LA Knight has often been compared to Steve Austin and Daniel Bryan as someone who got over with the fans organically, but he sees one difference between himself and them. Knight’s rise in WWE has been off the back of fans getting behind him, something that he previously said that he couldn’t really explain.

Knight may not be at the top of the card yet like Bryan and Austin were at their heights, but he’s someone who got pushed after fans organically got behind him. He recently reflected on the matter in an interview with Phil Mackey for SKOR North. He said that, without taking anything away from Bryan and Austin, he sees the difference being that Bryan and Austin got over after having already found some success in WWE while he was not getting anything. You can see the highlights below:

On Daniel Bryan Becoming a Top Star Without Being the Company’s Pick:

“He is, but I’m going to put a little asterisk there. Because a lot of people make that comparison to me. And I’m going to tell you how mine’s completely different. His was a groundswell in the same way, where it was like the people kind of took over the show and said, ‘Hey, we want this guy.’ However, by that point the guy had already been an Intercontinental Champion. I think a couple times, a Tag Team champion. He had been in major storylines and all that. I had done literally nothing. I had no machine behind me, nothing.”

On How He Got Over:

“I was fed to Bray Wyatt. God bless him, and he was great to me and we had an awesome thing there. But I was literally fed to Bray Wyatt. And in those times of being fed to him, I was able to shine in that process to where the people were like, ‘Oh, wait. This guy, he’s pretty good.’ And from there, they could watch me just have no plan. There was nothing nothing for me, nothing for me, nothing for me. But in those in those nothings that was happening, those little one minute nothings where it was like, ‘All right well, yeah, he can talk for a minute.’ I made sure to make the damnedest of that.

“So when we talk about a Daniel Bryan or we talk about Steve Austin or any of these others who had these groundswells of support, they had already had runs as Intercontinental Champion, Tag Team champion pushes. I had nothing. I came in and was just floundering, doing jack nothing. And from there, somehow out of that, just with those little bits of one minute to be able to talk, and get my personality out and have a little bit of wrestling. I was able to go ahead and get that groundswell. If you ask me — not to toot my own horn, but toot toot — nobody has ever done what I’ve done.”

“And I hate to say that and sound like I’m over here just blowing smoke up my own kiester. But it’s just — when you really pull everything back, pull all the layers back. Nobody’s ever done that.”

On Austin’s Rise:

“Not to take anything away from Austin. You’re talking about one of the greatest of all time. But if you wanna see when he really starts getting the major star pops, it doesn’t really happen until he wins the WWF Championship, the WWE Championship. Me, I was getting the major star pops at Money in the Bank when I hadn’t done a thing. I hadn’t won a championship, I hadn’t done anything. I had been on the roster for less than a year, doing next to nothing.

“Whereas again with Austin, he’d been around now for what, when he started getting the monster pops, would have maybe been end of ‘97 but I’m really gonna say probably ‘98. He’d been on the roster for two years at that point in time. He’d already been again, Intercontinental Champion, he’d been in major storylines with major talent. I was not. And it’s the same thing with Daniel Bryan, it’s the same thing with all of them. I’m not taking anything away from them; they all still did it, they proved themselves. Still a couple of the greatest of all time. But I’m telling you just from that state — yeah, it’s a major sticking point for me. Nobody’s ever done that from that depth.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit SKOR North with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.