 Okay, Paul Heyman, obviously has been in the business for a good long time. He's got a great mind for the business. I would say he's got the mind of a thoroughbred and the body of a guy who just thoroughly eats all the bread. This is why he's fucking great. What's good, Josh? Bob Ross back again with another video. So we're going to check out LA Night's shoot on WWE's creative directions for him. This should be a very interesting video. I definitely would like to see what LA Night had to say initially when he came to the main roster and what WWE creative had formed with Vince McMahon had formed originally. We all saw he was part of the, the, uh, maximum male model group. Like he was like their manager. And it's one of those things where the fans that knew who he was before he got into WWE, the fans that, uh, you know, was appreciating what he was doing in NXT. Once he got to the main roster, the writing was on the wall. You already knew they were, they weren't trying to take this guy seriously. And it was only a matter of time before he got featured endeavored. And you can tell, and it was, it was right time, right place. When Triple H did take over in creative, he was able to get rid of that and let LA Night be who he was always meant to be. And now he is one of the most over individuals in WWE right now. And I think he's going to have a great breakout year. Well, I mean, he's already having a breakout year now, but I think we're going to see him as a future champion, definitely going forward into 2024. So we're going to check this out. I know he has a lot to say. Appreciate all the love and support you guys shown on channel. Let's get right into this one, man. Something you said in an interview this week got me thinking. You said that when you came back to WWE, there were goals that you had in your mind that some of those like teaming with John Cena were not goals that you even thought were possible. And I wonder, wondered in that vein, main event in Crown Jewel with Roman Reigns was something like that in your goals. No, no, I have certain things literally like I tried to be pretty general. I'm actually going to look at a couple of them right now. It looks like I'm kind of screwing you off right now, but I'm actually just kind of I want to go and reference them real quick. But I had written kind of just general stuff where it was like, all right, you're one, I want to do this and that XT. OK, you're two, I want to be on the main roster. I want to be in the video game, SummerSlam, Survivor City, all these things where I was just like, I want to have this and this and this. And that's always good, y'all, to write these things down and actually implement them. I've actually not even bullshitting you. I actually did that myself earlier this year and even years in the past. I had a list of things that I wanted to accomplish. And I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to accomplish this and I was knocking them off the list one by one, because when you write it down and you actually see it every day and you put in the work to implement, to get to those goals, you will be surprised how those goals will completely get knocked off your list one by one. So this is very cool to know that he had a list of things that he wanted to do when he got to WWE and he was knocking them off the list. But of course, sometimes like give you hiccups that comes in the form of Vince McMahon and horrible creative. But like, you know, I might have put like, all right, this championship this year, this, you know, whatever. But I'd never really gotten super specific about things because it was like, you don't know what's on the table, what's available. And like, as far as like now wrestling for the WWE championship at Crown Jewel. In basically year one of being on the main roster. I guess it's just the beginning of year two. Yeah, we missed it by like a month. It's pretty wild. Definitely, definitely not something that I expected. Not something that I had foreseen. And here we are doing it anyway. So, yeah, man, it's and I know some people felt like he got pushed into the main event scene soon, but I'm OK with it. Because one, it didn't really have anyone else at the time into it worked. It worked in a sense of because he's that over and there was nothing wrong with him getting that opportunity and he was protected in the end. The fact that he went from the being a manager for some male models. To main eventing a pay per view with Roman Reigns. And people buying into it. People actually caring. Just saying that's that's a major step up. It's I think it's important and necessary to kind of have goals and things to look at. But my God, I'm jumping the gun. As far as some of this is concerned for where I've got my my WWE and my WWE Championship match set up for them. We had the contract signed with you and Roman. I don't want to put it. It felt like that was a test for the early night character of like, you know, you've been the early night character with everybody. Now it's with Roman. It's in a contract sign that's, you know, the biggest situation so far. And it couldn't have gone any better. You walk past them, sit on top of the table, the head of the table. So good. How much input did you have in some of the stuff that went on in that segment that made it feel so so electric? I mean, look, a lot of that stuff is conglomerative effort. I have a lot of ideas for things that of course, you know, there's a team here and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, you can have all the best damn ideas. But if you can't execute it, none of those ideas mean a damn thing. So at the end of the night, it was a matter of me going out there, executing the thing and making it happen. And if if you feel it went over well and a lot of people do, then I think I did my job. So I was going to bring up Paul Heyman. You know, he's obviously very heavily involved with Roman's stuff. That's what he was great. What has he been like to work with so far? I mean, look, Paul Heyman obviously has been in the business for a good long time. He's got a great mind for the business. I would say he's got the the mind of a thoroughbred and the body of a guy who just thoroughly eats all the bread. This is why he's fucking great. The mind of a thoroughbred, but the body of the guy that eats all the bread. This is why. This is why he's great. That's natural charisma, bro. That's naturally that's. You can't teach that, you know, you either you have it or you don't. I like that, man. This is why I can't wait for him to be a future champion. And at one point, hopefully relatively soon, a world champion, man. He's he's like I said, he is a guy who is invaluable to the business. I'll just say that some people know that you briefly were in developmental a decade ago, some people don't obviously didn't work out. In your mind, why did that not work out then compared to obviously what is working out in spades now? It's not in my mind. I can tell you exactly why it didn't work out without without getting too deep into the details, me and the at the time head coach from about day one did not get along. I was pretty much told from day one, I expect to hate you. At which point I'm thinking, well, then why the hell am I here? And so for about a good 12 months, that it was just me poking the bear and him, you know, hating me and this, that whatever, it went back and forth until finally my ass was out a year later. But, you know, I was told on my way out, we think you're very talented. We would like you to come back at some point, but there's a stigma around you. There's a perception issue and we need that perception to go away. For that perception to go away, you have to go away. So maybe it's six months, nine months, a year, whatever, and we'll get back in contact, whatever. And true to the word, we did and we talked in a year and I was supposed to come back. But at the time where I was working was offering me money that I had never seen in my life and when you talk about a guy who had been broke for the first 10 years of my wrestling career, working odd jobs and stuff, just trying to get by seeing a couple extra zeros on the page was pretty damn attractive. Yeah. And so I said, I'm going to stay here and keep doing this for a couple years. And so me and WWE kind of did a dance for the next three years where it was like, I check in with them, hey, you know, what's the offer? We're offering you this. OK, well, this company's offering me this, so I'm going to stay. And then the next day, man, there's nothing wrong with what he's talked about right here. Know your worth. Yes, obviously, WWE is the biggest company, wrestling company in the world. But if they ain't trying to pay you like you're a superstar, like you know that you are, then don't don't settle when they when they start bringing in that money for you, then it's not even settled. Then it's like, all right, give me a little bit more and we hear because WWE will pay if they know they can get some money off of you. So it's just crazy how he he he bought in to himself. And that's what y'all need to remember. There's a lot of gyms. He's dropping in his vid just talking about his personal experience, buying in to yourself, man. It's definitely one of them next year. It was the same thing in the next year. It was the same thing. And then it was just kind of like, all right, well, then communication broke down and it was like, all right, screw this, you know, whatever. And, you know, I kind of went about my business. I think I ended up in NWA and the pandemic happened and all this stuff. And I was pretty sure that my window of opportunity was over. And lo and behold, that was wrong. And I happened to strike at the just, I guess, the perfect time. And here I came in the door and I basically said, give me three months, three months to make an impact, to make a dent. And if you don't think that I'm doing my thing, then you can send my ass home. And well, here we are about almost three years later. And they haven't sent me home yet. Yeah, I don't think you're in any danger. Yeah, when that happened in 2013 or 2014, you left. Did that put a chip on your shoulder to kind of grow? Oh, yeah, I mean, I already had a chip on my shoulder anyway, because at that point, I had been 10 years deep in the business and felt like I had been overlooked way too many times unnecessarily when I was looking around. And look, different regimes are going to have different ways of staffing this place. But, you know, it looked to me like they were just trying to staff up like a modeling agency for a while. There's a bunch of guys who had like really good looks and whatnot, but like couldn't really bring it. So for me, it was just like, man, I'm let me just be honest. I felt like I was a sports entertainment or TV pro wrestling wet dream. I'm honest. Like, I mean, I got I got the look that you want. I've said it before. He is a he is the modern day nostalgia trip for attitude era wrestlers. If you were a fan of the attitude era and the wrestling and the promo delivery and stuff like that, L.A. Knights, you got that's why it's working because people that, you know, around my age group that grew up around that, we can we can relate. We can respect that. This is it's you don't see too many wrestlers that talk like him, that have the mannerisms like him. You don't you really don't. But also at the same time for the new generation, like I said, you don't see too many wrestlers that talk, they walk like him, they move like he does, that has this energy. He stands out in the sea of a lot of people that kind of are mundane. Even though if he would have came in the attitude era, he probably would have fit in a little bit, probably better or whatnot. I know people's definitely would have hit him with the rock in stone cold comparison. So that may have hurt him. But in this instance, because of the era he's in right now, he gives nothing but old school nostalgia, wrestling vibes. And I love it. One, I can talk the trash and I can go in the ring and I can do the work. What else do you want? So at that point, it was just a matter of me just getting the attention of the right people, getting the right eyes on me. And I guess getting the perception right. Yeah. And so, yeah, I already I already had a chip on my shoulder kind of coming in there. But for whatever reason, one of the biggest challenges for me in the business and this is from day one all the way back when I started in 2003, it was just that people get a certain perception of me. I carry myself with confidence. I sometimes will share my opinion. But at the same time, I'm also a pretty quiet guy. When the cameras aren't on and whatnot, I kind of stay to myself. So I might just come say hi to you and then go off and just be my myself and they're like, oh, this guy is a real jerk. And it's like, no, I'm not a jerk. I just I don't know. Do you want to talk to me? Like, why am I going to come over and bother you? I don't know. So it's just kind of like once people get to know me, I tell you this, when I was in impact, biggest, biggest babyface turn ever bound for glory 2015, some drinks were flowing, we're having a good time. Everybody thought I was a complete jerk. And then it was like, we're hanging out, we're having a good time. All of a sudden, big babyface turn after this night, it just took a couple, couple drinks and everybody being open and us talking and hanging out. And by then it was like for the next three, three and a half years. When I was there, everything was wonderful. Honking door, copacetic because like once people actually hang out or I get to work with somebody, it's like, OK, OK, yeah, he's actually, he's actually all right. Oh, thank you. Thank you for throwing me that bone. So with that being the case, there's always been that challenge to where it's like, I just need to get my foot in the door, but people always have this perception that always held me back. So now I'm finally got my foot in the door and then that perception happens to be an issue again with the head coach and then I'm out after a year. So I'm like, I'm going to go and just crush this. I think a lot of people get fired and then they have then gone into hiding or just quit the business or whatever. And for me, it was like, I'm not going to take any time off. I moved back out to LA and I got right back on the horse and it was just like, I'm going to start working little indie promotions. OK, impact calling. Cool. I got a job there and go work there now. And so it was just making sure that I continued to move forward and that was mentality as the WWE was watching me, whether they were or they weren't. When you came back in 2021, what were those initial conversations with Triple H, like, was it was a very positive that, you know, I knew you were saying, give me three months, but did you get the vibe that the rest was going to be different this time? That's going to be much better. Well, first of all, coming in this time, I felt much more confident that I was wanted and that's because the lead writer and road dog had both reached out to me and they wanted to meet with me before I came in. So we sat down and just kind of talked about different ideas and things like that. And I'm like, wow, OK, I feel like they actually like want me. And the lead writer, Johnny Russo, was just like, he was like, oh, yeah, I'm familiar with your stuff that you've been doing. And I'm like, oh, wow, you know my stuff. I'm like, OK, cool, like I'm not a I'm not a complete unknown walking in the door and I'm not unwanted, which is cool. Let's go. So so that. And then the first time that I was like talking to Hunter straight up, you know, face to face, was just kind of like, hey, man, I know I left with heat last time this that whatever. And he was like, don't even worry about it. It's water on the bridge. We got all that good. We are on a brand new clean slate right now. I said, cool, great. And so we went there, we did the thing. And and I think we we made some good memories there in NXT. And that's how you're supposed to do it, bro. So if you're trying to build up stars or get people to know new stars. Cool, water on the bridge. Let's let's do this. Let's let's let's get it right this time. That's how you do it. Simple. It's about money making money. L.A. Knight is making them a lot of money. He's pushing a lot of merch. People are wanting to go when Roman was gone for months. L.A. Knight was the top guy on SmackDown. Dead Ash. He was the top guy on SmackDown when Roman was gone for months. He was the top guy. Now, he's still one of the top guys. Obviously, you got Randy Orton. He's going to obviously be the bigger guy, the bigger star, because he's been there for a while, AJ Styles is back. You know, so he has some competition at the top spot. But L.A. Knight's still up there. And he's still mingling around with the idea of Roman Reigns getting his run back. Now he's about to be mixing it up with AJ Styles and Randy Orton. Like, you know, like this is just one of those type of things where it's so cool to see him being at the top of the card for so long and it doesn't seem like it's going to stop anytime soon and I'm all for it. What is your what was the highlight for you at NXT run and why? Well, I mean, it would have to be partially the million dollar championship feud rivalry. Sorry, some people don't like that word and including million dollar man in there, Ted DiBiase and me and Cameron Grimes just putting on some great matches and just a lot of fun like character stuff. But then you go on to even getting into war games in the 2.0 era, where it was, you know, basically the black and gold versus 2.0 and stuff like that. And me doing all the stuff for Grayson Waller. A lot of that stuff was pretty crazy and it was great. And that was a big shift where it was like all of a sudden kind of like it happened here all of a sudden the people started getting on that gravy train where it was like, all right, we're going to jump on a bandwagon here with with LA and things got got pretty good and big there. Now, I do need to ask you and I apologize in advance for bringing up Max to you briefly when when that was pitched to you. What were your initial thoughts? So did you think maybe I need to do this to get back to you? Like, what? Tell me tell me the initial thoughts. Oh, man. My thoughts were you're riveting me, right? Is it serious? And because that that's if someone came to you with that ridiculous idea after your character is good by itself. You be like, you can't be serious, right? Like, it's got to be a joke. Oh, my God, I was originally just told off the cuff by somebody else who already knew. And I was like, oh, no, they're just messing with me. And then when I got there, we actually had the meeting about it. I was just like, OK, all right. Well, and when it was explained to me at first, I was like, all right, this is I don't like this at all, but I'll make it work. Yeah, that was my thought. But I mean, it was a lot of me just grit in my teeth and just man, this is not me. This is not for me. But hey, man, you're going to give me a big raise to do this. OK, well, I'll try and make it. And, you know, some people would say, I was actually told this is a direct quote from somebody. I don't remember who, but they were like, you know, sometimes you have to. What do they say? Sometimes you have to be somebody else to like make it or to get. To go legit or something like that. What's funny is whoever said that. That's more or less the truth, bro. Like you have to literally be in you have to have like this. And it's weird. It shouldn't be that way, but you've got to go through like the bullshit phase of horrible gimmicks to sometime get to do what you really want to do. And that's what it kind of seemed like they they was given this dumb ass gimmick and it's like he had to play ball. They gave him some more money to play ball, but he had to play ball. Because if he doesn't do that gimmick, then they probably just let him go. But he does the horrible gimmick and it just so happened that Vince was a, you know, Vince was out for a little bit and Triple H was able to change things, man, but I'm pretty sure that's how it probably definitely happens in WWE. They'll give you some bullshit gimmick, even though you already had something that works in NXT or in the indie scene, independent scene. And then you kind of just got to arrive with it. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was something where I was just like, I don't I don't know if I agree with that or feel that way. But sure, I'll take that for now. And then by the time I was able to get out of that and just be me again, it was like, OK, cool. Well, that was that's that's something I'll use at least if I ever need to. I never did, but it was like, OK, well, you know, here's the explanation as to why I was given bad advice just told, you know, in order to make it or get you put in the door, you got to pretend to be somebody else for a while, which is pretty much what I felt like I was doing for that time. And you know, I mean, we hear all these stories at Vince McMahon, Love the Max, the free gimmick, but then Triple H takes over, you become early night again, always right with the world. That wasn't a pretty tumultuous time for you, but did you have faith that the early night character would be back? I plan and I don't know what anybody's plans were as far as that was concerned, but I definitely tried to plant seeds with that here and there, wherever I could, because I know that once once it was said that Hunter was in charge of creative in July of twenty twenty two, Ellie Knight started trending on Twitter. Yep. And kind of shocked me, but I took a screenshot of that and I sent it to him. I was just like, maybe there's something to this. No, bro, because that's all I was like, yeah, get get him. Get him away from this gimmick. Let's let's L.A. Knight. Let's go. Come on. We're here for it. Vince is going. Let's do this. Get get this out of here, bro. And once he said that gimmick, I was like, yes. Oh, yes, we we we got something here, y'all. And so now, whether that actually affected anything or not, I don't know. But but the moment that it was presented to me, my reaction was F. Yeah, please. Like yesterday, let's go. I do. I do want to touch a little bit on Bray Wyatt. You know, you know, all the stories about him have been so so great and all that kind of stuff, and you were his last opponent and you got to work with them for a while. Do you have any sort of nice experiences or nice memories you can share with us of your time working with Bray? I can't speak to anything particularly personal. I mean, like, you know, I weren't like best friends or anything. But like, I could just tell via the interactions and every every reaction and interaction that everybody had with him like nobody ever had a bad word to say about him. He was always cool with everybody in the back. Everybody got along with him swimmingly beyond. And I mean, just super family man. I mean, seeing him with his kids and stuff was always cool. He was very crazy to say that L.A. Knight was his last opponent, bro. Jesus for a rest in peace break. Still does not feel real that he's gone, bro. That's tough. As far as me and him, I mean, it was just a friendly, professional relationship. And we just went out there and did our thing. I was given a lot of trust to just kind of do me, be me and make the most of my time. And so there were no real limits or handcuffs put on me as far as like, hey, I'm going to go out here and just do whatever. And a lot of times I don't like to go over what I'm going to say before I go out there because for me, it's not fresh. It's not it's not it's not authentic. If I'm going to be like, oh, hey, I'm going to say this. Yeah. So like, I was given a lot of a lot of leeway, a lot of trust in that regard where it was just like, all right, hey, man, whatever you want to say, just wing it. Oh, OK. I'm just the last questions for you. I want to ask you about, you know, you obviously you weren't on WrestleMania this past year and then, you know, people were kind of buzzing about L.A. Knight and L.A. that weekend. Then you come to London and money in the bank. People are, you know, I mean, everywhere you went in London around wrestling fans, it was I think I was hearing yet in my sleep. It was just about you saying that that stuff actually while you might not have been on WrestleMania or won the money in the back match, that that stuff actually helped the kind of groundswell for you continue to build and build. I'm sure it probably did in some way. People always want what they what they can't have. And I think that that was maybe even some of the trepidation with with just pulling the trigger on that as well. You know, this might be a flash of fans. Yeah, you know, something to wear like this. Give them what they want and maybe they're going to turn on it. It's like, well, OK, well. At least let's do it. I don't know. But for me, did that help in some way? Maybe I don't know. Maybe it added to it. Maybe maybe it would have been cooler if I won money in the bank. Maybe it wouldn't. I don't know. Bottom line is here I am in a situation that if you look at how the year started and if you even look a little bit further than that, you look at how my main roster run started, I have no business being here right now. But the bottom line is I willed it into existence. I made it this way and and it helped having everybody come with me just saying, hey, man, we want this guy. We demand this guy. And so the people put it into existence basically on my back with me going in there, not quitting, not giving up, knowing that I had something to prove, knowing that I had something to give to this and now. I'm trying to get something back from this this loveless mistress that is wrestling sports entertainment. And at this point, I'm looking to take that WWE championship because for me, that's a big feather in my cap to say, man, you never stopped and here you are. Man, I can't wait for him to be WWE champion one day, bro. I can't wait. Oh, it's going to be it's going to be a fun time. It's going to be a fun time. The last question before I let you go is, you know, you're now on that upward trajectory, you won the Battle Royale Summer Slam. I want to ask you about a promo you did with the Miz, where he kind of brought up the rock Austin comparisons, which I guess some of your critics tend to bring up sometimes. What do you say? What do you like? What do you say to that? If somebody was to use that as a certain negative, say, well, you know, I compare him to the rock of Austin, he's not an original. If that was what they were to say, what do you say to that? Good for you. I don't care. I mean, if you want to speak my name in in, you know, the same sentence with those guys, I'm cool with it at the same time, looking to go above and beyond anything that they did. Got all respect in the world for those guys. But at the same time, of course, there's influence in wrestling. My God, have you ever heard of Ric Flair? Because the chances are, if you have, guess what? He was influenced by Nature Boy Buddy Rogers. Who knew? You ever heard of Hawk Hogan? Do you ever know that maybe he was influenced by superstar Billy Graham? I think he even admittedly says that he took some stuff from Dusty Rhodes. Wow, what a surprise, I guess, that like he sucks then, right? Now, so look, the bottom line. How many times have I said this? How many times have I said the very same thing? Y'all got to stop that. Especially wrestlers that have criticized him for that. People, fans, you got to stop it because if that is the case. I think you shouldn't like Ric Flair. You shouldn't like Hawk Hogan, some of the greatest of all. You shouldn't like them. You shouldn't. Just keep it a little bit. And as you take your influences and you make them yours, you make it into your own thing, look at music, man. Music's the same thing. You can always listen to guys and think, OK, wait a minute, that sounds like this person from the past, but it's like with his own twist. He's doing his own thing. Same thing with athletics. Look at Colby Bryant compared to Michael Jordan. He basically modeled his entire on-court style to Michael Boone. And guess what? He had a hell of a career with it. Anybody wants to go ahead and say that? Please welcome it. Say whatever you want, because at the end of the day, I'm going to do me. Hey, man, this was a very good interview, but I love this one. I'm going to go ahead and give this a like. This is on Inside the Ropes. Make sure you check him out. Check this video out or, you know, check out other videos he has. But this was fantastic, bro. This was great. L.A. Knight's a good dude. I'm looking forward to seeing what 2024 has in store for him. And he was dropping some gems. Hopefully you guys paid attention to him, man. The end of the day, even if a door gets closed on you, it does not mean that same door can't be reopened or other opportunities can't be opened up to you. All you have to do is keep fighting, keep persevering, keep putting on the best, putting yourself in the best situations to achieve said goals, man. But comment down below. Let me know, man. What are you guys looking forward to the most from L.A. Knight in 2024? Me personally, I'm looking forward to him at some point. I feel like it's going to happen. L.A. Knight versus Logan Paul for the United States Championship. I'm looking forward to that and him getting his first main roster championship in the United States Championship. Definitely looking forward to that. Or do you guys think he'll win something else? Maybe the Royal Rumble or maybe get another World Heavyweight Championship opportunity in win? Let me know what you guys are looking forward to the most from L.A. Knight in 2024. I appreciate all of the support you guys are on the channel. Road to 150K. And I'm still here and speaking to the rest of the world. Appreciate y'all kicking in with me. See y'all on the next one. Peace.