LA Knight is scheduled to compete in the Men’s Money in the Bank ladder match this Saturday. Knight has been popular with the fans due to his charisma and the “Yeah” catchphrase. He is one of the favorites to win the MITB ladder match.
However, the 40-year-old star’s gimmick is a lot similar to The Rock and Steve Austin. Therefore, many fans criticize Knight for stealing Rock and Austin’s characters.
In an interview with Ariel Helwani, LA Knight was asked if it bothers him that people call Knight a Rock & Steve Austin knockoff.
“Hey bro, I was going to make comparisons. It’s the easiest thing for people to do. If you have something that’s familiar to you and here’s this new entity, all right. What can I compare it to? So, that I can make it feel familiar to me? That’s fine. Whatever you need to do, go ahead and do it. I am me. I’m the one. I’m the only. I’m LA Knight.”
Helwani questioned if Knight has taken something from Rock & Steve Austin’s gimmick.
“When I was in high school, those guys were my bread and butter; those were the guys that I wanted to be when I was like 16 or 17 years old. So I’m sure there’s hell. I probably found my normal speech pattern. Every day when I’m talking to you, it’s probably somehow derived from them. Whether that’s purposeful or not, and it’s definitely not.
So it’s just the fact that, man, I sat there and watched every single episode of Monday Night RAW. I had all the little VHS cassette tapes like ‘Cause Stone Cold Said So’, or ‘The Rock Says’, and stuff like that. I watched all that stuff.
“So man, you’re talking about formative years, very moldable years of maybe in some way have penetrated my brain in some way. But whether you want to make the comparisons — hey, I’ll tell you what. Let’s make this comparison. You want to say that I’m the Kobe to their Jordan? I’ll take it.”
Helwani questioned whether it would be a mistake or a huge error if WWE doesn’t make LA Knight Mr. Money in the Bank this Saturday.
“One way or the other, a lot of times, things are going to go how they’re going to go, and it’s all up to me. Now, look, this is where I said people are talking about strapping the rocket to me. I’m gonna strap my own rocket in two minutes, which is what I’ve done for the last five to six months, so at this point, whether it goes this way or that way, whatever, I’m gonna make this stuff work, and I’m gonna take myself to the top one way or another.”
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