Billy Corgan says NWA was heading toward putting the world title on LA Knight during his time with the company.
Years before LA Knight was one of the hottest stars in WWE, he was one of the standout performers in the NWA. Then known as Eli Drake, he was renowned for his charisma and his promo skills. After he signed with the company in 2019, he became one of their featured stars, and he went on to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship with James Storm.
The COVID-19 pandemic then turned the wrestling world upside down, and Drake ultimately left the company in late 2020. He then signed with WWE in 2021. In recent months, Knight has become one of the hottest members of the WWE roster, as he consistently gets the loudest pops of the night. His popularity continues to surge, and there is no end in sight.
In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, LA Knight came up in the conversation. Corgan looked back on working with him in IMPACT Wrestling and NWA. He revealed that Knight was in line to win the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship, but it became clear that he had to move on.
“When I was in the booking office of then-TNA, I was certainly one of his biggest fans. I pushed hard to get him more time. [He’s] one of the great promos of all time, Nd that’s not to take away anything from his wrestling. He is a main-event level ability in the ring, but we all know that if you can walk and talk, you hit that other echelon. It’s great to see him hitting that now. He was being set up to be NWA Heavyweight Champion, and that’s right around I think the time the pandemic hit. He was under an NWA contract, and it got to the point where it was like, I can’t remember what it was, but me and him always did good business, no heat there. But it was obvious that he needed to go pursue other opportunities, and where I was standing at the time was just gonna hold him back. There was something there, but it was clearly understood that obviously it was built around Aldis for a while, but once Aldis was gonna drop the title, it was gonna clearly go to him. So it’s a shame that it never happened because we would have had a lot of fun. Always great to work with him. I’ve always gotten on with him, and I’m very happy for him. He deserves every bit of success that’s come his way because he’s fought and clawed his way to get there," Corgan said.
In the same interview, Corgan stated that he thinks NWA is positioned to be the next big wrestling company. Check out his comments here.
Diamond Dallas Page recently praised Knight. Click here to see what he had to say.
Fightful will have live coverage of NWA 75 as it airs on August 26 and 27.
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