‘We Both Got A Phone Call’ – LA Knight Reveals WWE’s Reaction To Unplanned Public Brawl With AJ Styles Ahead Of WrestleMania 40 Match

Gorilla Position/WWE

LA Knight has revealed WWE’s reaction to he and AJ Styles’ unplanned public brawl ahead of their match at WrestleMania 40.

After both LA Knight and AJ Styles failed in their attempts to end Roman Reigns’ historic Undisputed WWE Championship reign at the 2024 Royal Rumble event, the pair broke off into a singles feud, with Styles turning heel on “The Mega Star.”

Their feud would eventually lead to Knight taking on Styles at WWE WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia, and heading into the event Knight and Styles dialled up the heat on their feud by engaging in an intense brawl whilst at a media event for “The Grandest Stage of Them All.”

The melee blurred the lines between storyline and reality and was captured on film by fans attending the press event, with Styles being shown to have suffered a bloody nose once the pair were separated.

During his appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Knight explained his reasoning for getting into the “work-shoot” fight with Styles, and admitted that he went into it with the belief that security would break it up before it could truly get going.

Knight recalled:

“I walked into the room and I’m shooting him looks, and he might have said some stuff. He’s doing his interview, I was talking to somebody else. So, whoever I was talking to, while I was doing that, AJ is over here behind me. I’d given looks, and he’d referenced me, and I’d looked over there, and stuff.

“But at some point AJ tossed a stool in my direction, and at that point all I’m thinking is again the depth of the story we had told up to now. I’m like, there’s no way I wouldn’t react if he throws his stool at me. What am I going to do? I’m going to fight him.

“So I go over and just start fighting him, and I’m thinking surely security is going to come and break this up real quick, and it just went on and on. We’re down there work-shooting, and he’s knocking me away, because we got to make it look good now, because we’re like in the people. I’m like, where the f**k is security? What is taking so long?

Knight continued, revealing that he and Styles both received “a phone call” as a result of the brawl:

“Then finally, like, because we’re both blown up at this point. But yeah, it was just literally going off the cuff. How do I not serve the story that we’ve told this whole time, even to where he’s serving it now, just by throwing the stool.

“Obviously, I’m sure he wasn’t intending to get to where it got to, but in my head, I’m like, I have gone to his house to fight him. He throws a stool at me from five feet away. What am I going to do? Just shrug it off? No.

“So I went over there, thinking security is going to take care of it. They didn’t. I mean they did finally, but yeah, it took a minute, and so I hit that, he slammed the s**t out of me, and he ended up with a bloody nose, so after that we both got a phone call, though, like, what are you guys doing, you can’t do that, and it was like, hey, I’m trying to keep it alive, I’m trying.”

While the incident led to a phone call from someone in WWE, the company eventually used the footage to further build their feud heading into WrestleMania 40.

Agreeing with Chris Van Vliet that the brawl fed into he and Styles’ story really well, Knight said:

“That was the thing, and I think he (Styles) felt the same way. We weren’t getting like marquee attention for this match or anything going into it, so it was like, how can we up this and try and get more attention on this instead?

“That wasn’t pre-thought, but I’m saying, even with the things of what if I go to his house and we’re gonna get arrested, all that kind of stuff.

“So yeah, it was just trying to try to ramp that thing up as much as possible, and that was just a happy accident that I think, because then they ended up using it and putting it on TV anyway.”

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• wwe
• AJ Styles
• LA Knight

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