Billy Corgan opens up about big plans he had for LA Knight in NWA.
In a past life, LA Knight was known to Impact Wrestling and NWA fans are Eli Drake. He managed to capture the Impact World Championship in 2017 before making his way to the Corgan-owned NWA in 2019. Drake would leave NWA at the end of 2020 to return to WWE as LA Knight in February 2021.
But before his NWA departure, Corgan was preparing to put the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on Drake. The Smashing Pumpkins frontman explained what happened during a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet on Insight.
“Yes, one of the great promos of all time, and that’s not to take away anything from his wrestling,” Corgan said. “He has a main event-level ability in the ring. But we all know that if you can walk and talk, that you hit that other echelon. It’s great to see him hitting that now. You know, [when] we booked him, he was being set up to be NWA Heavyweight Champion. And that’s right around, I think the time the pandemic hit.”
What Could Have Been
Corgan said he has no heat with Knight, who was under contract with NWA at the time. But he realized that Knight needed to leave to go pursue other opportunities.
“And where I was standing at the time was just going to hold him back. There was something there. But it was clearly understood that, obviously, was built around [Nick] Aldis for a while. But once Aldis was going to drop the title, it was going to 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. And somewhere there’s a picture of my 50th birthday. And it’s me, Aron Stevens, Eli Drake, EC3, and I can’t remember, another person from wrestling was there. So yeah, I’ve always gotten [along] with him. And I’m very happy for him and he deserves every bit of success that’s coming his way because he’s fought and clawed his way to get there.”
Drake finished his NWA run by dropping the NWA World Tag Team Championship in November 2020. He held the gold with James Storm.
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If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Insight with a h/t to WrestleZone for the transcription.
