LA Knight Addresses WWE Crowd Reaction To Him Not Being ‘As Big As It Was’: ‘I Don’t Have A Set Trajectory At This Moment’

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LA Knight has weighed in on the reaction towards him from WWE fans not being “as big as it was.”

Arriving on WWE’s main roster in May 2022 at the age of 39, LA Knight quickly had the odds stacked against him when it came to reaching the top of the company when he was repackaged as the slow talking Max Dupri of the Maximum Male Models group.

Thankfully for “The Mega Star” he returned to his NXT moniker of LA Knight after Triple H took charge of WWE’s creative, and by early 2023 he was in a high profile position feuding with Bray Wyatt and seeing his popularity rise in the months that followed.

Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Knight identified when he started to notice the fans getting behind him, and discussed how many thought his popularity was just going to be a fad.

Knight said:

“In March of 2023 was the first time I noticed (the crowd getting behind him), 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.”

Knight then offered his own two cents as to why his reactions seem to have cooled off a bit lately, with the former United States Champion suggesting that it’s due to his lack of meaningful creative direction:

“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.”

When asked what direction he would ideally want things to go in so fans can invest in him more, “The Mega Star” admitted he doesn’t have anything specific in mind, but thinks his stalled momentum is a “crime” from both an outsider and insider perspective.

Knight continued:

“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.”

It has been almost two months since LA Knight last wrestled a match on WWE TV, with his six-man tag team match alongside The Usos against Logan Paul, Austin Theory and IShowSpeed being his last in-ring exercise. However, he will soon return to the ring to compete in the first round of the King of the Ring tournament against Jey Uso, Finn Balor and Royce Keys.

Knight has still been on WWE TV however, almost exclusively voicing his displeasure at Roman Reigns’ rise back to the top, and The Usos’ role in helping him stay there.

Following his most recent WWE Title defense against Jacob Fatu, Roman Reigns called out Knight, along with SmackDown star Royce Keys – click here for his full comments.

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