NWA President Billy Corgan has revealed that LA Knight was very close to winning the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, had world events not intervened.
LA Knight spent just under two years with the National Wrestling Alliance under the name “Eli Drake,” and during that time would compete against the likes of Ken Anderson (formerly Mr. Kennedy in WWE), Scott Steiner and Colt Cabana.
In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Billy Corgan spoke about Knight’s time in the NWA, and shed light on how he had planned to position Knight at the top of the card.
“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, and 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,”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NWA had to shut down operations, meaning that we’ll never know if LA Knight was going to win their World Heavyweight Championship.
Still, every cloud has a silver lining. LA Knight is achieving great success in WWE in 2023, and with steadfast crowd support, he’s primed for even greater achievements ahead.
Did LA Knight Win Any Titles In The NWA?
LA Knight did see some championship success in the National Wrestling Alliance. On the 1st of January 2020, he and James Storm captured the NWA World Tag Team Titles at NWA Hard Times. After only one successful title defence (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), they would lose these titles the following November to the duo of Aron Stevens & Kratos.
H/T Fightful