Interview: LA Knight On 'SmackDown' Returning to USA Network
LA Knight opens up about beating Logan Paul for the US Championship, the origins of 'Yeah', and 'Friday Night SmackDown' returning to USA Network.
After defeating Logan Paul in an epic match at SummerSlam, wrestling star LA Knight became the WWE United States Champion. And with WWE Friday Night SmackDown switching networks beginning Friday, Sep. 13, Knight is also a champion of USA (Network).
“USA has been such a home for the WWE,” Knight told Sling in an exclusive interview ahead of SmackDown’s return to USA Network. “I mean, whether it was Raw or [Survivor Series] or All American Wrestling, whatever, you can take it all the way back to the ‘80s to trace it back with USA.”
With SmackDown returning to USA, you can catch all three weekly WWE shows – WWE Raw on Mondays, NXT on Tuesdays, and SmackDown on Fridays – on USA Network, which is available on Sling with a subscription to Sling Blue or Orange + Blue (click here for a complete guide to watching pro wrestling with Sling).
When Sling spoke to LA Knight, he was all smiles, due in no small part to his Championship belt, which he happily flashed throughout our conversation. Check out our full interview below, and use the link to subscribe to Sling Blue with USA Network.
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Sling: You’ve already had to defend your title a number of times since claiming it in August. Was that intentional or do you just happen to attract all sorts of challengers?
LAK: Well look, the second you’re holding one of these, all of a sudden, all you got is people looking for this thing. So in that regard, you also look at the last guy who was holding it, my predecessor, what, he had two reigns I think in the entire ten months he held the thing. Well, I'm already two reigns in 30 days at this point. So for me, it's just kind of, I think, a little bit of a different flavor, a little bit of a different pace. And, I think that if I'm honest, I think I'm just a little more seasoned to take on the challengers.
And that's not taking anything away from Logan Paul. Everybody can see the guy's a hell of an athlete. He can do all kinds of crazy things that most of us can’t. At the same time, does he have the bandwidth? Does he have the stamina, so to speak, to keep doing this at this kind of a pace? I don't know. But I tell you who does [have it]: this guy (gestures to himself).
Sling: One thing that really sets you apart is your skills on the mic. How did you develop that and how has it evolved over time?
LAK: I have no real answer for that, other than the fact that it was one of my main focuses. I was never afraid of the microphone. That always baffles me when I run into people – whether it was on the independents or anywhere else – [who are] Like, ‘I don't like to speak.’ Well then, you might’ve got in the wrong business.
Because as far as I'm concerned, any of the guys who were interesting to me when I was growing up were the guys who would talk that trash. So for me, that was one of the biggest reasons I even wanted to do this, just to get in there and talk some trash and back it up.
And so for me, I can't really say particularly, like, how I developed it necessarily. But it was just…I inundated myself with, you know, the old VHS tapes of watching guys just talk trash. And then even now getting into YouTube, go back and pull up, you know, old [Steve] Austin, Rock, [Rowdy Roddy] Piper, [Macho Man Randy] Savage, Jake the Snake…all these guys and just kind of listen to them and kind of studying them and just seeing how they do the stuff.
But can I say how I apply that in any particular way? Not really. It was really just making sure that you know how to dynamically go out and say something that's going to get a reaction, and just you gotta hit the right punches at the right time. And I really don't know how to describe it in any real succinct way other than, it's really something that has to be felt. You can't really do a ‘Step A, Step B, Step C’ thing, because things aren't always going to go in a linear fashion. So you gotta be able to listen to what's happening, see what's happening around you and make sure that you're actually, like, listening and reacting to everything that's actually happening. And then that way it also makes it real. It makes it organic. It's not prefab and B.S. So those are really the main major things for me.
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Sling: You’ve obviously had a lot of success in recent years. Looking back, was there a particular moment when you realized your career was really taking off?
LAK: Yeah, 100%. It was March of 2023 in Washington DC. I think [it was] maybe a few weeks or like a month or so out of the Bray Wyatt rivalry. I started declaring, you know, I was going to go to WrestleMania. ‘You can't have an LA WrestleMania without LA Knight’ – what a rip that turned out to be. But, regardless, in that process, it was like all of a sudden people started jumping on this bandwagon. And I remember DC was the first time where that music hit, and then it was like, BOOM, there's a little pop there. And it was like, ‘wait a minute, okay, that was different, that's not usual.’ But I kind of chalked it up to, ‘well, maybe enough people in the audience know that I grew up right up the road here, about an hour away from DC.’ So maybe that's why I was getting that reaction.
So I kind of shrugged that off, until the next week, I think we went to like Pittsburgh or something like that. It was the same thing. And then the next week was New York and it was the same thing. And then it started to grow and grow and grow. So yeah, it was probably around like early spring, late winter or 2023 where I was just like, ‘okay, something's going on here.’
And finally, eventually, there was no denying it anymore. People want to talk about being undeniable: There's nobody that has gone from less desirable to more undeniable than this guy.
Sling: It probably helps to have a good catchphrase that audiences can get behind. Where did the “Yeah” come from? Even going back, there’s a video of you with Triple H early in your NXT run using it.
LAK: That's the thing, it wasn't even in the works necessarily. It was just stuff that I would just say. That was me. Normal life, all the time, every day.
When somebody would be explaining something to me, for instance, and you know how some people would just be [nods and says “mmm-hmm”]? For some reason or another, I would just go, “Yeah. Yeah.” And somebody had called me out at one point, like they thought I was being kind of a jerk by doing that. Like I was going like, “Yeah. Yeah.” And I wasn't! I was just kind of, instead of mmm-hmm, I was giving, “Yeah. Yeah.”
And so then I leaned into that and I was just like, screw it, I'll play into this. And so then when they would start explaining things, I would go, “Yeah. Yeah.” Kind of like a sarcastic, “Yeah. Yeah, dummy, I get ya.” And so it just kind of became something that was just part of my normal vernacular day-to-day.
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And so in that video particularly – from that Triple H workout DVD, I think is what you're talking about – that was just my normal reaction. And so at some point, it became a thing that just bled into my work. ‘Alright, well, if I'm talking out there, why wouldn't I just talk like I talk?’ So that's what I'm doing.
Questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity.