LA Knight's First US Title Challenger Determined On SmackDown

LA Knight won his first singles championship in WWE at the SummerSlam 2024 premium live event (unless you count his reign as Million Dollar Champion in NXT) when he defeated rival Logan Paul in Cleveland. He came out on the August 9 episode of SmackDown last night to celebrate his victory, but he was interrupted by Santos Escobar and Legado Del Fantasma.

Escobar claimed that he was going to be the next United States Champion, with Knight being a placeholder before his own reign begins, but Knight said he had to earn the shot at his title, and that he would be in a number one contenders match with Andrade. The match took place following their in-ring segment, but thanks to the aid of an interfering Carmelo Hayes, Escobar picked up the victory over Andrade to make himself the brand new number one contender, and therefore LA Knight’s first United States Championship challenger. Hayes targeted Andrade after losing to him twice in singles matches in recent weeks.

It isn’t yet known when the title match between LA Knight and Santos Escobar will take place. It was reported over the weekend that Knight had agreed to a new WWE contract extension.