LA Knight

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.

Shaun Ricker was born in Hagerstown, Maryland, on April 16, 1982.

He has two older siblings and started watching professional wrestling at the age of three.

He graduated from North Hagerstown High School.

Ricker began his wrestling career on the independent circuit in 2003.

Ricker moved to Cincinnati after high school and began training at the age of 20 on March 17, 2003, supporting himself with work at a lumber mill and a Ruby Tuesday restaurant.

He began working regularly for the Heartland Wrestling Association (HWA) later that year under the ring name Deuce.

On November 9, 2004, Deuce won the HWA Television Championship, and dropped it on January 4, 2005.

He had previously made sporadic appearances in WWE over the years; he teamed with Jon Moxley in a losing effort against Big Show in a dark handicap match in May 2006, teamed with Gene Snitsky in a losing effort against Cryme Tyme (JTG and Shad Gaspard) on ECW in 2008, and played a security guard during a segment featuring CM Punk and Kevin Nash on Raw in August 2011.

He joined Championship Wrestling from Hollywood (CW) in 2010, when the promotion was affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA).

In December 2010, Ricker moved to work for NWA Championship Wrestling from Hollywood.

He joined forces with Brian Cage, forming The Natural Selection tag team and winning the NWA Heritage Tag Team Championship from The RockNES Monsters on December 8.

After holding the titles for over 200 days, The Natural Selection lost them to The Tribe when Cage missed the event, causing the match to become a handicap match.

Ricker then feuded with Cage for several months, staying even on victories until he defeated Cage to end their feud in late 2012.

On December 24, Ricker unsuccessfully challenged Adam Pearce for the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship.

However, he won the Percy Pringle III Cup, where the winner earned a shot at any championship, any time, any place..

After leaving in 2013, he signed a developmental contract with WWE and performed in its developmental territory NXT under the ring name Slate Randall, before being released in 2014.

Outside of wrestling, Ricker appeared as a cast member on Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's 2013 reality show The Hero, had a small role in a 2015 episode of the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and provided the motion capture for other WWE wrestlers in many of the WWE 2K series of video games.

On May 5, 2013, Ricker won the 30-Man Red Carpet Rumble for the CWFH Heritage Heavyweight Championship in homage to his late friend and manager Percy Pringle.

That same night, he successfully defended the title against Ryan Taylor.

Ricker would lose the championship to Scorpio Sky in a Loser Leaves Hollywood match later that night; this match was scheduled to air on June 2, on tape delay, but was never aired due to the controversial finish.

After the cameras went off, Ricker got on the microphone and thanked all of the fans for coming out, saying it would be the last time he would be seen in a ring for Championship Wrestling from Hollywood.

All of the wrestlers came out from the back and gave Ricker a standing ovation.

However, he made one more final television appearance, defeating Sky's fellow Experience members Big Duke and Xtian Cole.

In May 2013, Ricker was one of many independent wrestlers undergoing the necessary medical testing required to be signed by WWE before he reported to the WWE Performance Center.

Upon signing to WWE, Ricker was given the ring name Slate Randall and made his debut by defeating Yoshi Tatsu in a dark match during an October 2013 taping of NXT.

Following that victory, he competed only as an enhancement talent for NXT, losing to names such as Baron Corbin, Mojo Rawley, and Mason Ryan.

He was released from his WWE contract on August 1, 2014.

After his release from WWE, Ricker returned to wrestling on the independent circuit and began competing under the ring name Eli Drake.

On September 5, at Full Impact Pro's Fallout, he participated in a trios tournament along with Mason Ryan and Michael Tarver, but they were defeated by the Full Impact Puerto Ricans (Lince Dorado, Jay Cruz, and Jay Rios) in the semifinals.

On November 21, Ricker defeated Kenny King at FSW Luck of the Draw.

He signed with Impact Wrestling in 2015 under the Eli Drake name and soon found breakout success, becoming a one-time Impact World Champion, one-time TNA King of the Mountain Champion, and one-time Impact World Tag Team Champion alongside Scott Steiner.

He also won Impact's Feast or Fired briefcase twice.

After leaving Impact in 2019, Ricker signed with the rebooted NWA, where he became a one-time NWA World Tag Team Champion alongside James Storm.

He left the NWA in 2021 to rejoin WWE, where he returned to NXT and was renamed LA Knight.

During his time in NXT, he won the Million Dollar Championship after defeating Cameron Grimes.

He moved up to the main roster in 2022 and was given a manager role, portraying a talent agent named Max Dupri who led the Maximum Male Models group.

He betrayed the group a few months later and reverted back to his LA Knight persona, subsequently resuming his in-ring wrestling career.

He suddenly accumulated an enormous level of fan support due to his promo delivery skills and character work despite being booked to lose most of his matches, a trend which was slowly reversed in response to the increasingly fervent support he received from fans.