LA Knight talks fight with AJ Styles, Slim Jim, eliminating Lesnar at the Rumble, and more

LA Knight sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Stamford, Connecticut to discuss winning the United States Championship, brawling with AJ Styles at the WrestleMania 40 media day, what if he joined WWE 10 years ago, how he became the Slim Jim guy, how much longer he intends to wrestle, possible retirement, eliminating Brock Lesnar from the Royal Rumble, and more!

I was at the press day when you and AJ Styles were fighting. You were next to each other:

“I walked into the room and I’m shooting him looks, and he might have said some stuff. He’s doing his interview, I was talking to somebody else. So, whoever I was talking to, while I was doing that, AJ is over here behind me. I’d given looks, and he’d referenced me, and I’d looked over there. But at some point AJ tossed a stool in my direction, and at that point all I’m thinking is, again, the depth of the story we had told up to now. I’m like, there’s no way I wouldn’t react if he throws his stool at me. What am I going to do? I’m going to fight him. So I go over and just start fighting him, and I’m thinking surely security is going to come and break this up real quick, and it just went on and on. We’re down there work-shooting, and he’s knocking me away, because we got to make it look good now, because we’re like in the people. I’m like, where the f*ck is security? What is taking so long? Then finally, because we’re both blown up at this point. But yeah, it was just literally going off the cuff. How do I not serve the story that we’ve told this whole time, even to where he’s serving it now, just by throwing the stool. Obviously, I’m sure he wasn’t intending to get to where it got to, but in my head, I’m like, I have gone to his house to fight him. He throws a stool at me from five feet away. What am I going to do? Just shrug it off? No! So I went over there, thinking security is going to take care of it. They didn’t. I mean they did finally, but yeah, it took a minute, and so I hit that, he slammed the sh*t out of me, and he ended up with a bloody nose. After that we both got a phone call, though, ‘What are you guys doing? You can’t do that.’ It was like, hey, I’m trying to keep it alive, I’m trying.”

It works so well for the story:

“That was the thing, and I think he felt the same way. We weren’t getting like marquee attention for this match or anything going into it, so it was like, how can we up this and try and get more attention on this instead? That wasn’t pre-thought, but I’m saying, even with the things of what if I go to his house and we’re gonna get arrested, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it was just trying to try to ramp that thing up as much as possible, and that was just a happy accident that I think, because then they ended up using it and putting it on TV anyway.”

It must have been so frustrating when people just kept bringing up that number. Your age?

“Yeah, I get it, though, because I think a lot of guys who are my age, and even a lot of guys who are younger than me, they’re in rough, rough shape. I’ve taken care of myself very well. I think I worked in a very safe manner, to where again it hasn’t led me to have [injuries]. I’ve broken my nose once, I’ve had a few concussions and stuff, but I’ve never had anything ever, never ever. I’m super reliable, I’ve never been on the shelf for any kind of real legitimate injury. My hope is to get out at some point, eventually, and not have any of those things on me. I’ve got neck and back pain, everybody has.”

Do you think about how much longer you want to do this?

“All the time. I’m looking at the clock all the time. The funny thing is, physically I could do this for a long time. I’m really good physically. Mentally, I’m just like, I’m gonna snuggle puppies.”

Would you like to wrestle into your fifties?

“No! f*ck no. Would I like to be able to come in and maybe do an occasional appearance? Yeah, sure, maybe. But I don’t think I’ve been built up to the point where I can do like an Undertaker-type thing or an Austin thing or something like that. So I don’t think that’s in my future either. So it’s pretty much gonna be at some point when I decide to call it, I’m gonna disappear in the sunset, and you’ll just never see me again. I’m not even joking, I’m being dead ass serious. If they decide at some point they get crazy enough to go, we’re gonna put him in the Hall of Fame, sure, I’ll come back do that. But I got a feeling that probably ain’t gonna happen either. But maybe that’s my own feeling of just like never being… No matter where I’ve gone, I’ve always felt underappreciated in the wrestling business, but I don’t know.”

You threw Brock Lesnar out of the Royal Rumble.

“I did. I’ll tell that story someday, but it feels too new and fresh to me. But I’ll just say things went differently than they were supposed to.”