LA Knight

LA Knight
LA Knight in 2023
Birth name	Shaun Edward Ricker
Born	(1982-11-01) November 1, 1982 (age 42) Hagerstown, Maryland, U.S.
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 height	6 ft 1 in (185 cm)[1]
Billed weight	240 lb (109 kg)[1]
Billed from	Baltimore, Maryland Hagerstown, Maryland Los Angeles, California
Trained by	Cody Hawk
Debut	February 15, 2003

Shaun Edward Ricker (born November 1, 1982) is an American professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he performs on the Smackdown brand under the ring name LA Knight and is the current WWE United States Champion in his first reign.

Ricker began his wrestling career on the independent circuit in 2003. He joined Championship Wrestling from Hollywood (CW) in 2010, when the promotion was affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). He signed a developmental contract with WWE in 2013 and performed in its developmental territory NXT under the ring name Slate Randall, before being released in 2014. He signed with TNA Wrestling in 2015 under the Eli Drake name and soon found breakout success, becoming a one-time TNA World Champion, one-time TNA King of the Mountain Champion, and one-time TNA World Tag Team Champion alongside Scott Steiner. He also won the Feast or Fired briefcase twice.

After leaving TNA (which became known as Impact Wrestling) 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.

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.