8 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SummerSlam 2023 (Results & Review)

5. LA Knight Arrives

LA Knight
WWE.com

It’s about time that WWE followed through and cashed in on LA Knight’s rising popularity.

After several noticeable slights – not being on the WrestleMania card, missing out on capturing Money in the Bank – Knight entered and won the SummerSlam battle royal Saturday, tossing the likes of Miz, Bronson Reed and finally Sheamus to win the whole thing and give the Detroit faithful reason to cheer.

Knight has been gaining fan momentum for a while now, but that hasn’t translated into a signature PLE moment – until Saturday night. While the battle royal didn’t carry a specific reward, winning on a big stage counts for something, and LA capitalized.

The question going forward is whether this actually means something and is the start of something big for Knight, or if it was just a one-time bump.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.