Who is this Megastar? Why has he become such a hot commodity in the world of Sports Entertainment?? Will the WWE and their leaders be able to harness his current value, and ride it for the big bucks, because this guy is drawing money, and his popularity has just begun to be tapped…Let’s look it over and see where this Megastar is coming from, and where he might be going…He is on his way up the ladder, and his status should continue to rise/grow, unless the WWE brass decides to derail his acessension up that special spiral staircase…You know how they are up at the WWE headquarters, if they don’t create the character, or feel like they brought on the character’s true heat, many times they just kill the character…
But this guy is drawing money, and the fans are very much so engaged with his character, as he continues growing in stature as the True Megastar, LA Knight…LA Knight, you know, he was portraying the character Max Dupri a while back on the WWE SmackDown show…At one time, he was doing quite well, at Impact Wrestling using the name Eli Drake…
Now, as LA Knight, Shaun Ricker is tearing the house down, as The Megastar…..
Yes, his real life name is Shaun Ricker, but if you watch the WWE Friday Night Smackdown show, you know that The Megastar IS none other than LA Knight…..LA Knight being the professional wrestling in-ring name for Ricker…LA Knight has become the true Megastar, and the way the WWE fans are reacting every time he heads to the ring, Triple H/Paul Levesque, needs to turn up the Megaphone, and work on making The Megastar, the top name in the business….
Give the guy a Megaphone, sort of like what you had with Jimmy Hart back in the day, and just turn him loose and let him go…LA Knight does not need to be doing a whole lot of wrestling, just let him make the money with his mouth…He should take that Megaphone, talk into it, and tell the fans, “Hey wait a minute, I have to tell you something”, and then throw that Megaphone to the wrestling ring mat floor, and say “I don’t need no stupid Jimmy Hart Megaphone, I do my work on the Mic”…
The fans in full accordance will respond by saying, “YEAH”…And then they will keep on chanting “YEAH” at everything The Megastar LA Knight says, and the house is coming down, and the place is going stir crazy, and the building is almost coming apart…Watch the WWE Friday Night SmackDown show, and you will see what I am talking about….LA Knight has what they call, The It Factor, right now…
The Fans reaction to The Megastar/LA Knight kind of reminds me of the way it was with Stone Cold Steve Austin, remember that catchphrase, “And that’s the Bottom Line, Because Stone Cold Steve Cold Steve Austin Says So”..The fans were living off of that line…Then there was the fans fascination with John Cena, and “You Can’t See Me”…Daniel Bryan wasn’t a super star when it came to lip service, but his “YES” line got the crowds going livid…”YES, YES, YES, YES”, it was hard to get back to the regular business of wrestling when that chant began…There was The Road Dog Jesse James, and his line of, “You Better Tell Somebody”, much better for him than his lines in the tune, “With My Baby Tonight”…What about the simple statement Scott Hall made, as he made his way to ring, in the WCW way back in the days of the NWO…He just simply said, and stated, “Stop The Music”, and the crowd was ready for that line, and they knew when it was coming next…Maybe my favorite catchphrase of all-time, and I still use it today, was Bret Hart, and him telling all us, and all of us believing it…Hart would say he was, “The Best there was, The Best there is, and The Best there Ever Will Be”…I still use that line from time-to-time today…Plus Kurt Angle would entertain us with his declaration of, “It’s True, Yes it is True”….
So, now we have LA Knight, ready to take his place somewhere near the very top of the WWE pecking order, and he is drawing the attention of the fans, and he, LA Knight is drawing BIG MONEY, and how did he get there???
Here is one of the eye-opening moments, that came in the career of LA Knight…
from Sportskeeda:
During a recent podcast episode, LA Knight explained the exact moment when he noticed that the fans loved him. The former champion stated that the Washington DC crowd’s reaction to his music while the WWE’s Sheamus and Drew McIntyre were in the ring made him realize his popularity.
“I can tell you exactly. It was back in March, we were in DC. Sheamus and Drew were in the ring, and then all of a sudden, that music hit, and I walked out, and I remember it just kind of hit me, and I was like, that’s different.”
YEAH, it is different, and the WWE needs to keep cashing in, on the new-found popularity of LA Knight…
LA Knight also said on the Chris Van Vliet Insight podcast, as he was talking more about this new LA Knight/The Megastar evolution:
“Triple H was out there doing a presser/Press Conference in Saudi Arabia and he’s getting interrupted. I don’t know why and maybe I don’t even wanna know why but for some reason or another, the people are demanding me.”
Knight added that the fans’ reaction surprised him:
“I was sitting in my hotel room in Saudi Arabia. I wasn’t even there. Somebody sent it to me on Instagram, I think. I’m like, ‘Okay, yeah, sure. Whatever. It’s probably like three people doing it.’ Then I see the video, and I’m like, that was pretty wild, but you know, I’m also the worst at letting something like that get to me. I can acknowledge it, but that’s like, ‘Okay, that’s cool.'”
So his catchphrase is YEAH…What??? YEAH…YEAH?? YEAH, it is YEAH…So learn it, and be sure to return it on Friday nights, when the SmackDown show airs on FOX…
And I just know, and have to believe that The Megastar/LA Knight is much more entertaining these days than say, The Bloodline…I say The Bloodline is getting a bit old…And anyone that finds Solo Sikoa entertaining must be from some other planet…That guy has no Character or Charisma at all…And that should be the redeeming order/theme of this entire post/article/story…Who has the Character, who has the Charisma??? Ric Flair had it, and to a certain degree, he still does have it with, “To Be The Man, You Have To Beat The Man, followed up by the WOOOOOOOO!!!!!
The Megastar, LA Knight has it….Character and Charisma….We have found it for you, the key to success, Character and Charisma…And LA Knight has it right??? YEAH!!!
Does Roman Reigns have it? YEAH…Do Jimmy and Jey Uso have the Character and Charisma??? YEAH…Does Paul Heyman have it…He is bald, he is overweight, he is getting older, but Paul Heyman can talk, and he can talk on and on, and Heyman has the Character and Charisma….But Solo Sikoa??? No Way Man!!! That guy Sikoa is killing The Bloodline….He has the Character and Charisma of a Stump…And that’s the bottom line brother…
But have we made our point???
I would say, YEAH….LA Knight is The Megastar, and he needs to used by the WWE in a prominent way….
If you believe in “What The ROCK is Cookin'”, just say, YEAH!!!!!
Here is one of my favorite Shaun Ricker/Eli Drake/LA Knight moments, and this was some good stuff:
In 2021, Ricker appeared in a CarShield advertisement as The Overcharger, a heel wrestler dressed like an automotive repair technician and defiantly bragging about how nobody can stop him from unfairly charging used-vehicle-owning customers for repair work. He is instantly struck down by Ric Flair, the ad campaign’s star and pitchman.
MORE on the Shaun Ricker/LA Knight background from www.wikipedia.com……….
LA Knight background from www.wikipedia.com:
Shaun Ricker (born November 1, 1982) is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name LA Knight. He is also known for his time in Impact Wrestling, where he performed under the ring name Eli Drake.
Ricker began his wrestling career on the independent circuit in 2003. He later joined the then-NWA-affiliated Championship Wrestling from Hollywood in 2010. After leaving the promotion in 2013, he signed a developmental contract with WWE and performed in its then-developmental territory NXT under the ring name Slate Randall before being released in 2014. He signed with Impact Wrestling in 2015 and found breakout success, holding the Impact Global Championship, TNA King of the Mountain Championship, and the Impact World Tag Team Championship (with Scott Steiner) once each. He also won Impact’s Feast or Fired briefcase twice.
After leaving Impact in 2019, Ricker signed with the recently rebooted NWA, where he held the NWA World Tag Team Championship (with James Storm) once. He left the NWA in 2021 to re-sign with WWE. He was renamed LA Knight and again assigned to NXT, moving up to the main roster in 2022. He was subsequently repackaged as a talent agent named Max Dupri who served as the manager of Maximum Male Models; a few months later, he betrayed the group, reverted back to his LA Knight persona, and resumed his role as an in-ring performer while accumulating an enormous level of fan popularity from his promo delivery and in-ring performances. On July 1, 2023, Knight participated in the men’s Money In The Bank Only for him not winning the briefcase after being upset by Damian Priest
Outside of wrestling, Ricker appeared as a cast member on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s 2013 reality series The Hero and appeared in a 2015 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Early life
Shaun Ricker was born in Hagerstown, Maryland, on November 1, 1982. The youngest of three children, he started watching professional wrestling at the age of three.