Kevin Knight is under two deals.
On March 29, shortly after his AEW Collision match against Jay White, it was announced that Kevin Knight was officially ‘All Elite’. The 28-year-old came in off the back of a successful run in New Japan Pro Wrestling, having captured the IWGP Junior Tag Team Championships on two separate occasions as part of the Intergalactic Jet Setters, and many have been wondering what his All Elite Wrestling arrival means for his time in Japan. Now, Knight has revealed that he’s able to balance both AEW and NJPW.
Speaking with Adrian Hernandez, Kevin Knight confirmed that, at the same time as signing with AEW, he also extended his stay with New Japan for at least another year.
“New Japan has nothing to worry about. I’m not going anywhere. As I got the AEW graphic, I inked a deal with New Japan as well. New Japan gotta deal with me for another year or so, and so is AEW. I’m doing both. Best of both worlds. The Jet is intergalactic, interdimensional, interpromotional,”
-Kevin Knight
After his move to AEW was announced, PWInsider reported that Knight had a tryout with WWE before making a decision on his future. At first, a portion of fans felt this was disrespectful, however Knight insisted he didn’t take it that way.
“I wouldn’t say disrespectful. I understand how the business works. WWE is a machine and sometimes there may be a bubble and they may not know exactly what’s out there. I didn’t take it as disrespect, if anything, I took it as a challenge just to show what I’m about. If they didn’t know me before, they definitely do now or they did when I walked through those doors. I’m going to make a statement anywhere I go. That was a great experience as well. I’m glad I got to do that. I got to meet a lot of people in that company and it was great just being able to work with people so closely that you see on TV every week and see on the PLEs. For me, it was a great learning experience. I didn’t take any slight to it. I understand how the business works. If anything, it was a networking opportunity and exhausting all of my options. I feel like I only grew from that, seeing how they work, what they’re looking for, and seeing the environment that’s there. It’s so different than me coming from the LA Dojo where there are only four of us in a class with Shibata and our teacher can’t speak English. TNA and AEW don’t have a training facility, per se, so to see how they do it, it was a cool way to see how different they do things. It was a positive experience for me overall,”
-Kevin Knight
Most recently, fans saw Kevin Knight battle Will Ospreay in the opening match of AEW Dynasty. While he didn’t progress in the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, Knight certainly proved that he has a bright future and many will be relieved that he isn’t being limited to just one company going forward.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Kevin Knight’s future as soon as we hear more.
H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.
