LA Knight

American professional wrestler
(Redirected from Eli Drake)

Shaun Ricker (born November 1, 1982) is an American professional wrestler and actor. He works for the WWE using the ring name LA Knight on the SmackDown brand. He is also known for his time in Impact Wrestling as Eli Drake.

LA Knight
Ricker as Eli Drake in November 2017
Birth nameShaun Ricker
Born (1982-11-01) November 1, 1982 (age 41)
Hagerstown, Maryland
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)Deuce
Dick Rick
Dick Rick Leykis
El Hijo de Trump
Eli Drake
LA Knight
Max Dupri
Shaun Ricker
Slate Randall
Billed height6 ft 1 in (185 cm)[1]
Billed weight240 lb (109 kg)[1]
Billed fromHagerstown, Maryland
Los Angeles, California
Trained byCody Hawk
DebutFebruary 15, 2003

Ricker began his wrestling career in 2003. In 2013, he started working with WWE. He worked in NXT using the Slate Randall. He was released in 2014. He signed with Impact Wrestling in 2015. Ricker found success at Impact. He won the Impact World Champion and the TNA King of the Mountain Champion. He also won the Impact World Tag Team Champion with Scott Steiner. Ricker also won Impact's Feast or Fired briefcase two times.

Ricker left Impact in 2019. He signed with NWA. He was the NWA World Tag Team Champion with James Storm. He left the NWA in 2021 to rejoin WWE. He returned to NXT and was renamed LA Knight. He was moved to the main roster in 2022. Ricker was given a manager role as a talent agent named Max Dupri. He led the Maximum Male Models group. A few months later, he left the group and changed back to his LA Knight persona and started wrestling again. He quickly got a large amount of fan support because of his promo skills. He was booked to lose most of his matches at this time. This changed because of the support he got from fans.

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

Career change

Beginnings and Heartland Wrestling Association (2002–2009) change

Ricker started his career on February 15, 2002, at the National Wrestling Alliance Wildside, a Georgia-based promotion, using the name Deuce. On that day, he teamed up with Onyx, and they lost a match to Johnny Psycho and Shadow Jackson.

In May 2003, he joined the Heartland Wrestling Association (HWA), an Ohio-based promotion, where he continued to use the name Deuce. On November 9, 2004, he became the HWA Television Champion after defeating JT Stahr. He held the title until January 4, 2005, when Brian Beech became the new champion.

Starting in May 2005, he adopted the ring name Dick Rick. On October 31, 2006, he left the promotion after losing a match for the HWA Heavyweight Championship, with his career in the promotion at stake.

References change

  1. 1.0 1.1 "WWE Profile Page - LA Knight". ESPN. November 2022. Archived from the original on January 27, 2023. Retrieved January 26, 2023.

Other websites change