LA Knight Reveals He's 'Pretty Sure' WWE Planned to Fire Him amid Rumors of MITB Push

Ahead of arguably the biggest match of his career at Money in the Bank, LA Knight revealed Tuesday that he believes he was nearly released from WWE last year.

During an appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Knight recalled thinking he was on the chopping block after he was called up from NXT to the main roster and given the Max Dupri character:

"Well, let me just go ahead and say this, I'm pretty sure I was fired. And it just hadn't officially happened yet. Without getting into too many details, some things happened. I don't remember what it was, but some things happened. And then I had gotten a FaceTime. 'Hey, you know, we want to keep you around. We want to do this, this, that whatever.' And, okay, cool. Good. So somehow I had been saved from being thrown off the cliff. At least this is my interpretation of it. Maybe I'm incorrect, I don't know.

"And so eventually, just things kind of worked out. And I think that maybe again, maybe some of the testament to why things are working the way they are and the people reacting the way they are, is because one of these was not me, and I didn't know who it was. And one of these is very much just me, like, I don't have to think about LA Knight, I don't really have to dig in like, what is this? Who am I? What am I doing? I just go and do, because it's just me heightened."

Under the name Eli Drake, Knight enjoyed tremendous success in Impact Wrestling and NWA. That led to him signing with WWE in 2021 and becoming one of the most popular Superstars in NXT.

Knight got moved up to the main roster in May 2022, but much to the surprise of fans, he was renamed Max Dupri and essentially took on a managerial role.

Under that gimmick, Knight was the leader of Maximum Male Models, and he recruited Mace and Mansoor to work for him. Later, Maxxine Dupri was called up from NXT to be placed in the group, and she was billed as Knight's sister.

By September, Knight broke away from Maximum Male Models and went back to the LA Knight moniker, and it is likely no coincidence that it occurred within a couple of months of Triple H taking on the role of head of creative following Vince McMahon's retirement.

McMahon has since returned to the fold, but Knight is in a better spot than ever on the WWE roster, receiving huge fan support and is perhaps the favorite to win the men's Money in the Bank ladder match.

Per PWInsider Elite (h/t Felix Upton of Ringside News), there are people within WWE pushing for Knight to win MITB, although it is unclear if it will happen.

If Knight does indeed secure the briefcase, he will be one win away from becoming world champion, which was almost unthinkable at this time last year when he was still saddled with the Max Dupri character.

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