Originally published to 8 News Now on September 9, 2024.

WWE superstar LA Knight recounted his first-ever trip to Las Vegas ahead of the “granddaddy of them all,” WrestleMania 41, bowing in the city in 2025, and teased a big night for SmackDown on Friday night as the program makes its move to the USA Network.

LA Knight, who defeated social media star Logan Paul for the United States championship at Summerslam in August, remembers watching WWE on USA Network in his formative days when nationally televised professional wrestling content was still a new concept.

“I grew up watching it all on USA,” Knight said, recalling the late 1980s and early 1990s when Prime Time Wrestling turned to Monday Night Raw. Starting Friday, WWE SmackDown will find its home at USA. “It feels like home.”

The move comes alongside several shifts in WWE programming. Starting in January, WWE Raw will be streaming on Netflix, an industry-shaking move that will make the program exclusive to the streaming giant. The CW will become home for NXT, WWE’s televised developmental league, at the beginning of October. That brand has proven to be a star-making one with its alumni inhabiting the topmost portions of pro wrestling stardom, including Rhea Ripley, Seth Rollins, Finn Bálor, Bayley, Roman Reigns, and of course, the man they call the megastar LA Knight.

With the entertainment capital of the world playing host to the industry’s biggest event, WrestleMania, in April 2025, Knight recalled a tumultuous 2009 drive that left the soon-to-be megastar stranded in Vegas.

“I was driving cross-country in 2009, I was moving to LA for the second time, and my car had the check engine light come on when I was in Indiana, and I’d left from Maryland,” Knight recalled.

The Defiant One, living up to his name, continued all the way to Baker, California, close to 100 miles outside of Las Vegas before his transmission failed.

“So the tow truck comes and he’s like, ‘Well, where do you want to go?’ He’s like, ‘I can take it forward to Barstow or I take it back to Vegas.’” Knight said. “And I said, well, I want to go forward. He was like, ‘Look, just take my word, you don’t want to go back. You don’t want to go to Barstow. You want to go back to Vegas.’”

Knight heeded the tow truck driver’s advice and headed back to the Las Vegas valley where he nabbed a room at the SAHARA Las Vegas Hotel & Casino for about $27 and then met up with some complete strangers in an elevator.

“I’m getting in the elevator, and this group of people are, like, rushing in,” Knight said, recalling that the group had asked him to hold the elevator before making him a very Las Vegas-like offer.

“They come in, and they’re like, ‘Hey, do you want to come to Charo with us?’” he recalled. The Spanish-born performer had a residence at the Riviera’s third-floor showroom in 2009.

“I’m like, well, I don’t even know what Charo is. Now I do — hoochie coochie coochie,” Knight said. His first trip to Vegas may have started dicey but ended with a classic Las Vegas show and burgers — a win for any trip to southern Nevada to be sure.

“I ended up leaving with […] about $10 to my name at that point in time,” Knight recalled. “I went to the McDonald’s dollar menu. […] Yeah. Dollar double cheeseburgers. Let’s roll.”

Far from his days slumming it on the Las Vegas Strip, Knight spends much of his time now in main events, fighting off challengers for his United States championship. The re-debut of SmackDown on USA promises an Undisputed WWE Championship contest inside a steel cage between the self-proclaimed “Tribal Chief” Solo Sikoa and the champion “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes. In addition, Andrade will take on Carmelo Hayes as part of their ongoing series of matches. Finally, A-Town Down Under, Austin Theory, and Grayson Waller will meet the “Prizefighter” Kevin Owens and his chosen mystery partner.

Will Friday Night SmackDown’s premiere on the USA Network be must-see television? As the megastar him