LA Knight Reveals WWE Were Originally Going To Debut Him As Eli Drake
LA Knight reveals he almost kept the Eli Drake name in WWE.
In February 2021, LA Knight made his NXT debut having had success in TNA and NWA as Eli Drake. At the time, many wondered whether the company may let him keep the name when switching promotions, though WWE opted to go down the route of changing his name to begin a new era for ‘The Megastar’. However, looking back on his arrival, Knight has now revealed he was initially supposed to keep the Eli Drake name.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, LA Knight pulled the curtain back on the process which led to him getting his WWE name.
“When I first signed to NXT in 2021, they were like, ‘We want to you bring in as Eli Drake.’ I’m like, ‘Great, perfect.’ And then three days before they’re like, ‘Oh, nevermind. Hunter wants to change it. He wants to start completely fresh and new.’ And then that’s when between all of us, we came up with, LA was from me, Knight was from them. And there we had LA Knight. Not necessarily [was having three syllables important], but I also know that in this business, you want a simple name. I won’t stay on this too long, but they pitched LA Donovan at one point. And I was like, ‘Blah, that’s awful. No, that’s so awful and terrible.’ And I feel like it pigeonholes and it’s sh*t. I’m forever a douche. I can’t do that. But you want a simple name. What do you do with LA Donovan? Finally we settled on LA Knight.”
-LA Knight
LA Knight’s time in NXT is perhaps most known for his feud with Cameron Grimes. After Ted DiBiase became a focal point of their rivalry, WWE reintroduced the Million Dollar Championship for the pair to contest over. In the summer of 2021, Knight had the title for 70 days, with the gold being returning to inactivity once Grimes had dethroned the star at TakeOver 36.
Of course, ‘LA Knight’ wouldn’t be the only name used by ‘The Megastar’ in WWE, as he’d portray talent agent Max Dupri for a short spell in 2022. After fans weren’t pleased with the change, he thankfully reverted to his NXT character not long after Triple H assumed creative control, something which would help increase his popularity tenfold moving forward.
Discussing the incredible crowd reactions he began to receive in 2023, Knight opened up elsewhere in the interview on why he thinks the response to him hasn’t been as loud of late. You can read more about that here.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on LA Knight as soon as we hear more.
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