NXT superstar and new Million Dollar Champion LA Knight recently spoke with PW Insider about a number of different topics, including his big win at Takeover: In Your House, and what his experience has been working with WWE Hall of Famer, Ted DiBiase. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On the Million Dollar championship and working with Ted DiBiase:
Well, it’s just crazy to think about. I mean, the very first time I saw the belt, the first question was, “That’s the real thing? That’s not a replica? That’s the real deal.” No, no. Oh geez, this is the only one that exists. It’s the real one. We get the name of the jeweler up in Connecticut that made it. And that blew my mind. You start to hear different stories. As a kid, I was there watching when it first popped up on the scene, when the thing actual happened and with Ted and he’s going into the jewelers in Connecticut and he’s getting it made. He’s checking on it and all that stuff and he brought it in and hit a home run with it. When I was a kid, I had the figure where he was wearing the green suit and it came with the Million Dollar Championship. So, that’s insanity to me to then walk in the door in NXT just four months ago, not even knowing that something like this was an option. You look at the NXT Championship and North American Championship, and those are things I’m gunning for, but then all of a sudden, wait a minute. Ted DiBiase? Million Dollar Championship? Hell yes, because you’re talking about just…I hate when people get too hung up on it’s a childhood dream and stuff like that, but you cannot deny the fact that this is on some level…it’s something that, if I wasn’t lying, a little bit overdue for myself. It’s been a long, storied road.
Hopes that Ted DiBiase sticks around because they have more work to do:
Well, I have to say this. He better be around for a little bit because we’ve got some stuff to do. Like I said, he’s got to help me get that last puzzle piece, which is just becoming the millionaire because everything else, I’ve embodied, it’s there, now I got the title. And I think it’s game on from here. So, I got to get Ted coming back. I don’t think Ted’s going anywhere.
On gaining the confidence to talk really well and connect with an audience:
I would say it was probably 10 years ago, honestly, way back in Championship Wrestling in Hollywood. Now that you mention that, way back when I was back there, it was just I felt comfortable in my own skin. I started to feel like that had something going. For me, it was always about, when I grew up, I liked that you could talk. If you couldn’t talk for the most part, I didn’t care. You could be the best wrestler ever. You could do the coolest moves ever. Did not care. If you couldn’t talk to me or you couldn’t connect with me in that way, then you weren’t on my radar for the most part and so for me, it was, that’s what I want to do. I want to talk. And then I want to walk like it, too. And I think that I started to really feel, like I said, that confidence and just feel comfortable in my skin with all of that, “Okay. I’ve got something going here.” So, about 10 years ago. I would say 2010, 2011 ish.