LA Knight was ready to go nuclear on Mark Henry after hearing the WWE Hall of Famer tear into him during his original NXT run. Knight even recorded an entire response calling Henry a “piece of sh*t,” but he stopped himself before putting the video online.
The two finally addressed their history during the July 27 taping of Off The Ropes. Henry opened the conversation by acknowledging that he had been extremely critical of Knight before the former United States Champion became one of WWE’s biggest stars.
“It’s no secret that I was very critical of this man.”
Henry explained that he wanted wrestlers to prove they could thrive on their own. He also respected that Knight contacted him directly instead of staying silent or complaining behind his back.
“The one thing that I got out of LA Knight was a man. When I think of wrestlers who don’t communicate in this modern era, you don’t find a lot of the younger wrestlers communicating, but you did.”
Henry recalled Knight directly telling him that he disagreed with the criticism, which opened the door for a real conversation between them.
“You said, ‘Listen, I don’t agree with what you said,’ and I went, ‘Well, great. Now we’ve got something to talk about.’ I always respected that.”
Henry also gave Knight credit for proving him wrong and turning himself into a legitimate main-event player.
“You were one of the few guys I was hypercritical about early who flipped the script and became a main-event guy.”
Knight then revealed just how furious Henry’s original comments made him. At the time, Knight believed Henry’s words could damage his career and cost him opportunities inside WWE.
“I remember I was in NXT the first time when I heard your criticisms. Boy, oh boy, was I pissed off because I was like, ‘This man is trying to take food off my plate.’ I was hot about it.”
Knight didn’t just complain privately. He sat down, turned on a camera and recorded a full response aimed directly at Henry.
“I had recorded an entire video basically telling you everything about how big of a piece of sht I thought you were.”*
That video never saw daylight. Knight decided that firing back publicly would only give the criticism more attention, so he deleted it and focused on proving Henry wrong through his work.
“At the same time, I decided, ‘You know what? I’m just going to delete that video. Why do I need to give that attention? Let me just go and do my thing.’ So that’s what I did. I continued to do that.”
Knight said changing Henry’s opinion was never his main goal. He respected Henry’s experience and accomplishments, but he also trusted his own instincts enough to keep moving forward without chasing approval.
“Whether that changed your opinion or helped that or whatever, it didn’t make a difference to me. I respect everybody’s opinion. Obviously, you’ve done it before I did. You’ve done all of this at such a high level during one of the greatest times in the history of the business, so I have to respect that.”
“At the same time, I’ve got to know and trust in myself and what I’m doing.”
Knight also addressed Henry’s original criticism that his speaking style sounded too similar to The Rock. Knight admitted that he understands why fans make the comparison, because he built his entire approach around becoming an elite talker.
“Your criticism originally was The Rock or whatever. I get that plenty, and I understand why I get that because when I came up, my whole thing was, ‘I want to be a great talker.’ The wrestling, I want to be good at that as well, but the guys who were successful in this business were great talkers.”
LA Knight could have turned the situation into an ugly public feud, but he chose to delete the video and answer Henry inside the ring. Years later, Henry is now giving Knight credit for shutting down the criticism and forcing his way into WWE’s main-event picture.
Should LA Knight have released the video and fired back at Mark Henry, or did deleting it and proving him wrong work out better? Leave your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
