LA Knight made his debut in the wrestling world back in 2003 just one year before Dwayne’ The Rock’ Johnson. He spent a long time in the independent circuit, where his career started. After performing 4 years under the ‘Impact Wrestling’ banner and achieving multiple accolades including the Impact World Championship, he joined WWE in 2021. However, he didn’t get a proper spotlight until his 2022 Smackdown debut.
In the world of wrestling, wrestlers usually don’t mind getting compared with legends of the past. Knight too received such comparisons with one of WWE’s biggest stars but promptly distanced himself from such comments.
LA Knight rejects the “The Rock” Dwayne Johnson comparison
LA Knight has been compared by many fans and critics to the likes of Dwayne’The Rock‘ Johnson or ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin. The California-born however, does not seem to like getting labeled that way and blames X (Twitter) in particular where he apparently sees himself in such comparisons the most.
LA Knight was asked what he thought about people comparing him to The Rock & Stone Cold. He had such a great answer:
"…It doesn’t matter. I’ve heard that since the very beginning, since I started in 2003. When I first started people would say he sounds like The Rock or he… pic.twitter.com/vKPizrLWW7
— Wrestle Features (@WrestleFeatures) August 20, 2023
The WWE universe can’t seem to let this topic go and even in a recent exclusive interview with Inside Ropes, he was asked about this matter. And as always, LA Knight rejected the “The Rock” Dwayne Johnson comparison saying,
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve heard that since the very beginning, since I started in 2003. When I first started people would say he sounds like The Rock or he sounds like Austin, even I think my second set of gear when I was in Ohio, I had red and yellow. Oh he’s being Hulk Hogan!”
LA Knight says everyone outside WWE influences him
The 40-year-old may not find any similarities between himself and the Rock but he later declared his inspiration was everyone outside WWE. He told how he was inspired by great superstars like “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Ric Flair, and Jake “The Snake” Roberts.
Also, musical artists and actors outside WWE reportedly inspired him a lot too and he asked fans to combine all these personalities to get the ‘real’ him.
“Everybody is going to make comparisons to some sort and I’m 100 percent influenced by those guys, absolutely. I’m influenced by Flair, Savage, Jake the Snake. I’m influenced by other entities outside of wrestling. Musical artists, actors. All that stuff is in there. At the end of the day you put all that together and you’ve got yourself LA Knight.”
Reports say, The Miz is his new rival, and there may be a clash between them on the ring knocking at the door. Are you enjoying the ‘Eli Drake’ storyline? Let us know in the comments!
