SingleWhiteGlove is a popular YouTube channel that’s as much an experiment as it is a celebration. Primarily using Michael Jackson hits, the channel’s creators do everything from removing the drums on an extended “Billie Jean” mix to highlight the synths and ad-libs, to a nine-minute a cappella version of “Smooth Criminal” that steadily ratchets up the tension between the custom-fitted rival factions. The technical change is known as separating the “stems” (or different layers of the recordings made to produce the original track) and manipulating those to make specific aspects of the whole song stand out. The goal seems to be finding ways to build on what’s been done, as well as putting an unmistakable stamp on top of that creation, to ensure that what works will stand up over time. Not so coincidentally, SingleWhiteGlove is also the current go-to music destination for LA Knight, WWE’s fastest-rising attraction and no. 1 contender to Roman Reigns’s Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. As he prepares to battle Reigns this weekend at Crown Jewel in the biggest match of his life, it’s the appreciation for the journey, and the willingness to use all the tools past and present, that has everybody saying precisely what LA Knight needs to continue his unlikely rise.
“If I talked to myself 10 years ago,” Knight admits, “I was convinced that I was the best thing walking the streets.” The first steps of that walk were just over 20 years ago with Cincinnati’s Heartland Wrestling Association. In March of 2003, a few weeks prior to Steve Austin and the Rock’s third and final WrestleMania match, Knight picked up and left his hometown of Hagerstown, Maryland, to pursue his dream of one day sharing a similar spot as the WWE superstars he’d tune into weekly. Training under Cody Hawk, he’d eventually catch on with NWA Championship Wrestling from Hollywood by 2010 under his given name, Shaun Ricker. After a solid three-year run, he felt prepped and primed for a more prominent spot in wrestling’s most well-known destination. To his disappointment, he was released by WWE the following August after a few dark matches with the early version of NXT. “Ten years ago, I couldn’t dream of touching the spot that I’m at now.”
Knight’s flash point with WWE may have been his handling of his most surreal feuds to date. Part showcase, part exercise in finding the proper tone, LA Knight would be the last opponent for the then-returning Bray Wyatt. The two would spend weeks exchanging words, playing mind games before their feud climaxed at this year’s Royal Rumble in a Mountain Dew–sponsored “Pitch Black” match. While on a much shorter timeline, Knight was experiencing what those ’Mania main-eventers before him went through early on, notably Austin in 1997, and Austin and Rock in ’99: Once the crowd recognized him as a unique talent, they simply did not want to boo him. Knight was up against Bray, who was returning from a lengthy time away from WWE with incredible visuals that wowed live audiences along with his cryptic, glazed Southern drawl, and new wrinkle—the mystery of his partner Uncle Howdy. Opposite the otherworldly presentation was LA Knight, both fully engaged with his opponent but defiant enough to stand out. “[In Wyatt,] you’re considering a guy with a hell of a career who made a hell of an impact, and then just considering the fact that when anybody thinks of that and they think about his last match or his last rivalry,” Knight explains, “the whole thing was so solid and so good that I don’t think that a lot of people could deny that.” Knight also points out that this feud not only helped “resolidify the legacy that Bray Wyatt already had, but it also helped to bring more notoriety to me.”
It’s strange to talk about a career that is currently playing out in public, across various companies, yet feels both brand new and like it arrived out of nowhere. Like Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley before him, the most significant success Knight had after his initial WWE stint was with TNA/Impact Wrestling. Under the moniker Eli Drake, he won the GFW Global Championship (which was renamed the Impact Global Championship shortly after his win), the Impact World Tag Team title, and the TNA King of the Mountain Championship over a four-year span. He reached no. 32 on the 2018 PWI 500, so it wasn’t a case of his steady progression being forgotten or ignored, it was just finding the right situation to showcase everything he’d been building toward. That opportunity would come in early 2021, when he’d leave Impact Wrestling to start his second WWE run at NXT Takeover: Vengeance Day. He’d earn his first title under the WWE banner in April 2021 by defeating Cameron Grimes in a ladder match for the Million Dollar Championship, getting help from the title’s namesake, Ted “The Million Dollar Man” Dibiase. Knight was now sharing screen time with the acts whose entire careers played out in front of him while entering the ad space dominated by legends whose reach extends beyond the squared circle. In the ’90s, Randy “Macho Man” Savage’s gruff tone and instantaneous energy made him the spokesman for Slim Jim; fast-forward to 2023, and it’s LA Knight who occupies that role.
“I had all these different goals and things in mind when I first signed back in 2021 to NXT, and I wrote a bunch of them down: year one, year two, year three, year four,” Knight shares. “And there’s just some of these things that I didn’t even know were potential possible goals, such as winning the Million Dollar Championship. I didn’t know that was a possibility. Being in a Slim Jim commercial, I didn’t know that was a possibility. So we’re kind of checking off boxes that I didn’t even know were there to begin with.”
There’s WWE’s incredible run of “new” youngest world champions, with Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, Yokozuna, the Rock, and the Undertaker all winning their first world titles before turning 27. LA Knight turned 41 two days ago and stands out in a way, presentation-wise, akin to what made those younger stars get the chance to showcase early on. Both loud and familiar, Knight’s understanding of how to pay homage without lessening the effect may be his most impressive attribute. Rock and Orton had a familial lineage that was incorporated into their presentation. One look at Lesnar, ’Taker, or Yokozuna, and you were seeing someone you don’t encounter in regular life. While Knight doesn’t have either natural advantage, he knows how to command a crowd once given the chance.
“Nobody ever wanted to give me a shot,” Knight admits. “I didn’t have the hookups. I didn’t have somebody in my family who was in the business. I didn’t have anybody who really had that kind of a hookup. And anytime that I kind of started to get my foot in the door a little bit, people get a certain perception or thought about me one way or another with me barely saying two words to them. So it always made it kind of tough for me to get going anywhere. Some of that, I’m sure, sits on my lap. I hold some of the fault in that, I’m sure. But at the same time, once I got that opportunity, I knew I was going to run like hell with it, and that’s what I’ve done.”
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25054394/SD_10062023BR_11596.jpg "How LA Knight Perfected the Pro Wrestling Remix (1)")
LA Knight isn’t the first act—or even the only active performer—in a vest/jeans/boots combo, but he’s the only one people are impersonating, live, from clothing to catchphrases, at this level. People come to live events in studded leather vests, wearing facsimile Butters in 90-degree weather, chanting Knight’s signature “Yeah!” at every turn. “My thought was always this: When you see a kid dressed up like Hulk Hogan for Halloween, you know immediately what he is,” Knight explains. “And so for me, it was like, ‘how can I create a look that’s mine?’” Knight soon built his simple look, piece-by-piece, from the sunglasses down to the classic Timberland boots—familiar and accessible, with accessories to help him stand out. Even his now trademark “Yeah!” clearly touches on the same chant/repeat “Woo!” of Ric Flair and the “What?” of Steve Austin, but how can you call restoring that feeling a bad thing when it works so damn well?
“I’m not trying to be a tribute act to anybody,” Knight states plainly. “Do I draw from some of that? Sure I do. Did Flair draw from Nature Boy Buddy Rogers? Sure he did. Did Hogan draw from Dusty Rhodes? Did he draw from Superstar Billy Graham? Of course he did.” Knight admits that the Attitude Era was huge for him as a fan, and that isn’t lost on the legends who take notice of his work. “One of the greatest things that I kind of get from time to time is getting older guys, especially, who just go, ‘Man, I haven’t watched in years, but you’ve gotten me back into it,’” Knight explains. “‘You give me that feeling that I used to get from it’, and I go, ‘OK, good. Then I’m doing my damn job.’”
A huge part of that job is the crowd, but there’s also getting that respect from the folks who can make or break your career. LA Knight’s found an unlikely supporter in WWE’s post-Attitude Era standard bearer, John Cena. To call the GOAT meticulous is to call a Cash Money chain shiny; his level of detail and effort is unmatched. We see it with Cena’s attire, his philanthropy, even with his house rules. We’ve seen the diverging ideologies of Cena and CM Punk, the slow path to a mutual understanding with the Rock, and the tough love given in front of the world to Austin Theory. The idea of LA Knight being anointed “next up” seems to come out of nowhere, unless of course, you’re LA Knight. “I always just needed that opportunity, that window to get in. And getting the opportunity and getting that window was always the tough part.” That window came off the hinges on October 13, when Cena expressed to a game Roman Reigns that there was a guy more deserving of a title match, introducing his recent tag partner against the Bloodline.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25054392/la_knight_1.jpg "How LA Knight Perfected the Pro Wrestling Remix (2)")
“The only thing I could really obviously pinpoint that to is [that] his whole thing is, ‘never give up,’” Knight explains. “‘Hustle, loyalty, respect’—all that stuff. Well, nobody’s hustled harder than I have and nobody’s lived and embodied ‘never give up’ more than I have. I mean, if you just look at the span of everything that I’ve done and the length of time, the things that I’ve gone through and things like that, I haven’t given up on this thing that I knew I had and this thing I had to offer.”
That spot is the position of the top babyface Friday nights on SmackDown and facing Roman Reigns for the company’s top title at Crown Jewel. Out of all the opponents Roman’s faced over his three-year-plus run, Knight’s the only one who doesn’t seem particularly interested in his contribution to Roman’s legacy. There’s an … acknowledgment of the moment, but he’s far more interested in what he can take than what he can gain.
“This is my first Crown Jewel show,” Knight says, “and I’m at the top of the card.” Knight understands the enormity of this moment, but understands why he’s in that position, calling this match “a hell of a testament to the work that I put in, but also just the people making it. Last time we were in Saudi Arabia, the whole crowd just chanting ‘LA Knight,’ right at Triple H. At some point, it’s undeniable. And I’ve made myself undeniable.”
Cameron Hawkins writes about pro wrestling, Blade II, and obscure ’90s sitcoms for Pro Wrestling Torch, Pro Wrestling Illustrated, and FanSided DDT. You can follow him on Twitter at @CeeHawk.
