LA Knight strikes a major deal with Damian Priest on SmackDown ahead of US Title match at Backlash 2025

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LA Knight and Damian Priest had an extremely tense face-off in the opening segment of SmackDown. They eventually struck a major deal ahead of their United States Championship match.

As you likely know, Jacob Fatu puts his United States Title on the line at Backlash 2025 in what many consider the most highly-anticipated bout on the card (or at least after John Cena vs Randy Orton anyway). On the episode of SmackDown before WWE Backlash, a huge tag team match was scheduled, with Damian Priest and LA Knight.

Priest stated that he was happy to keep his rivalry to just Drew McIntyre, but the opportunity to unleash his aggression and reclaim the US Title was too good to resist. LA Knight got in his face and told him not to get in the way of him and his United States Championship.

They came to an agreement - to stay out of each other's way for the greater good in their tag team match right after that.

They would, of course, team up to take on the duo of Jacob Fatu and Solo Sikoa. The tensions between Priest and Knight were far too high due to the clash of big egos.

This very much played out during the match, where Priest refused to tag LA Knight in while Fatu and Sikoa worked as a unit. Even after this, Knight and Priest managed to pick up the win.

After Knight picked up the win, the two men began to brawl, and Jacob Fatu laid the SmackDown on both of them.