They don’t give out report cards in professional wrestling, but if they did “The Jet” Kevin Knight knows just what grade he would give to his first year in All Elite Wrestling.
The 29-year-old Knight, who makes up one half of the tag team JetSpeed alongside Laval, Que.’s “Speedball” Mike Bailey, is approaching his one-year anniversary with the company at the end of the month.
“I’m hard on myself and I always love to improve, so I’ll give myself a B-plus,” Knight told TSN.ca “I’ll give myself a B-plus because I came in with low expectations or no expectations and I feel like we exceeded those expectations with me and Speedball being on TV consistently, giving us title opportunities and winning them. And then in less than my first year, I end up getting a shot at the world title. So, I’ll give myself a B-plus because there is a lot more room for improvement. I’m just excited to see how we grow from this moment.”
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A native of Atlanta, Knight has competed in all of the singles, tag-team and trios divisions during his first year in AEW, winning gold in the latter with Bailey and “Hangman” Adam Page. He’s spent time in the ring with some of the best the industry has to offer in the likes of Swerve Strickland and Jon Moxley. His breakout performance in last fall’s Continental Classic tournament saw Knight pick up wins over Kazuchika Okada and Darby Allin.
Company president and booker Tony Khan must have liked what he’s seen from Knight because he’s sticking around. Originally on a one-year deal, Knight confirmed a recent report from Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp that he signed a new, multi-year deal with AEW earlier in 2026. For Knight, the new pact with the company is a matter of making the most of what was put in front of him.
“I think it means that they trust me and see something in me,” Knight said. “Tony just gave me so many opportunities. I guess he liked the way I wrestled and became accustomed to me. So, he was like, ‘Man, I wanna lock this guy down.’ Yeah, Tony’s put a lot of trust in me and has shown a lot of confidence in me. So, just him wanting to get me back for a few more years is validating in that I proved myself and that he wants to see more of me.”
After spending time at the famed Buddy Wayne Academy in Everett, Wash., Knight made his professional debut in 2019, working in a number of indies in the Pacific Northwest.
He took the next step in his training in 2020 when he joined New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s L.A. Dojo as part of a class that included other future AEW stars in Gabe Kidd and Clark Connors. Joining the ranks of New Japan meant embracing the traditions that have birthed what the company calls “Young Lions” for generations.
“The training style was honestly kind of similar, conceptually,” Knight explained. “Just with the New Japan-style, we just added so much more intensity and so much more emphasis on the fundamentals. Because when I trained at Buddy Wayne, it was maybe once or twice a week. When you’re at the Dojo, it’s six days a week. You’re going from a little bit of training to this training is your whole life. So it was just upping the intensity and the training was not really the hard part. It was the lifestyle, the Young Lion mindset – doing people’s laundry, making chanko [a Japanese soup nicknamed “sumo stew”]. That experience was a tough part for me because I never knew what a Young Lion was, but just adjusting to that lifestyle was honestly more challenging than the training.”
The head trainer at the Dojo was current AEW star and highly respected veteran performer, Katsuyori Shibata. In Shibata, Knight says, he found an instructor whose veneration for the craft permeated everything he imparted to his charges.
“Shibata really, really, really respects and loves pro wrestling because – and he will tell you this himself – the reason why he’s here is because of pro wrestling,” Knight said. “His dad [Katsuhisa Shibata] was a pro wrestler and his parents met through wrestling, so he wouldn’t be here without it. He loves and respects it so much and he passes that love and respect down to us to make sure we have the same reverence for it by cleaning up the dojo, doing the squats, doing the push-ups, making sure that everything is in order, making sure that we respect the ring, respect the space that we’re in.”
Working with New Japan’s U.S.-based arm, New Japan Strong, for much of 2020 and 2021 as the pandemic raged, Knight finally arrived in Japan for his first tour in the fall of 2022 where he would participate in the Super Junior Tag League 2022 tournament with multi-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Yujiro Kushida (known mononymously and stylized as “KUSHIDA”) as his partner. The two would go to hold the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships on two occasions as the Intergalactic Jetsetters.
For Knight, KUSHIDA was more than just a tag partner.
“KUSHIDA taught me so much about the Japanese way of wrestling, the Japanese mindset and how [Japanese wrestlers] are,” Knight said. “Me and KUSHIDA did a lot signings, we did a lot of media together in Japan, and he would always give me little tidbits of what each city was known for or what people in this city like and things of that nature. He’d always give me the lay of the land because me, being a foreigner, doesn’t know anything about Japan. I don’t know how an Osaka is different from a Tokyo or Aichi or Sendai or a country town. So he’d always give me insights on those things and they’d help me so much, just learning how to cater your performance to your audience and just the slight differences to make.
“That just helped me take that same mindset back to America. You may do a different set. It’s like comedy. You may say different jokes in Los Angeles than you do in New York. So it’s the same thing with wrestling, just catering your performance to your audience and getting the most out of it. I feel like he really helped my foundation in that aspect.”
The experience in building rapport with a partner carried over into AEW. On the Apr. 23, 2025 edition of Dynamite, Knight teamed with Bailey, a man he knew from time spent in both NJPW and Impact/TNA Wrestling, for the first time against The Young Bucks (Nick Jackson and Matt Jackson). The duo would go on to become regular partners in AEW. Despite disparate styles, JetSpeed has gelled as a team.
“I think it’s our international experience that helps us understand that there are so many different ways of wrestling and Speedball has just so much knowledge,” Knight said. “He knows how to put us in the best position possible and to make these matches flow in the way that they flow. I say he’s the mastermind behind it all. We have such different backgrounds and different personalities that it just naturally clicks because we both understand wrestling.”
With Knight’s profile growing as the year went on, the plaudits from critics, fans and contemporaries alike begin to pile up.
This past fall, Dax Harwood, one half of the veteran tag team FTR,appeared on a podcast where he was effusive in praise of Knight, calling him a future “ace” and noting that he would be a big star “in three to five years.” Harwood’s comments would be referenced weeks later in a backstage promo by Strickland, who told Knight not to wait “three to five years” to make his mark.
“Future star” is something that has been tossed around a lot when it comes to Knight, but he recognizes the downside to what is largely conveyed as a compliment. Focusing on what he could be fails to acknowledge his present.
“They may mean well with that statement, but at the same time, it’s kinda backhanded,” Knight said. “But I take it as constructive criticism because I may have to look at myself, take a step back and see what do I have to work on to become an undeniable top guy, you know what I mean? I look at the guys who were a champion or are a champion in our business, such as a Mox or MJF or a Swerve or a Hangman. I look at the qualities that they bring, and I see how I can bring that in my own way. And I think it’s just going to come with time. It’s going to come with repetition and with just building that cachet with the All Elite audience because I’ve only been here for less than a year, so I haven’t built up that cachet enough for people to see me in that light.”
The Knight-Strickland dynamic was revisited this past Saturday night on Collision and the two appear to be primed to cross paths again in the near future, one way or another. Knight and Strickland are part of a wave of exciting, young Black talent emerging across the industry in AEW, World Wrestling Entertainment, TNA and beyond. Knight takes pride in being a part of this group.
“We’re all so talented and all so gifted in so many different ways,” Knight said. “And I think it’s so cool that we’re getting an opportunity to do it. I think Black talent has always been ready and available for the top title or the main event scene, but now in 2026, we’re just getting the opportunity, the time and space to be seen as such. You see a Trick Williams, you see a Swerve, you a Leon Slater, a Je’Von Evans, you see all of us thriving in those ways. So I think as we get the same opportunities, it’s going to be normalized and then in 10, 20 years, people won’t be saying, ‘Oh yeah, he’s good for a Black guy’ or ‘He’s one of the best Black wrestlers in the world.’ It’ll just be you think of the top-five wrestlers and you think of these certain names. So I think in 2026, it’s just about us normalizing that type of thing and the more opportunities that come with it, I think we’ll be more than ready.”
In Knight’s immediate future is a match at Sunday’s Revolution pay-per-view at Los Angeles’s Crypto.com Arena. Knight teams with Bailey and CMLL icon Mistico in an attempt to regain the trios titles against new champions Okada, Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis of the Don Callis Family.
Knight says the level of talent in this match just speaks to what a loaded roster AEW has on offer right now.
“The depth of AEW right now is insane when you think about it,” Knight said. “It’s insane, the fact that we’re in a trios match and it’s not a marquee world title match between Okada and Mistico. We’ve got a great up-and-comer in Kyle Fletcher with his partner, Mark Davis. You got me and Speedball and that’s gonna be one of the first matches or early on in the card. It just shows the depth of the roster. It’s like an embarrassment of riches.”
That Knight can be deployed in any kind of match speaks to his versatility and how comfortable Khan is in using him, but it keeps performers on their toes. Whatever you’re handed, you run with it. That’s the mantra for Knight.
“We just have to make the most of it with each and every opportunity because we never know what we’re going to get into a week after this or what next week is going to look like,” Knight said. “[JetSpeed] and the Hangman became a thing kinda at the last minute, but we went together and got some [matching] gear made because we don’t know how long it’s going to last. So it’s always about making the most of every moment because you can be on the pre-show today and in a world championship match [like the one Knight wrestled against AEW World Champion MJF on last week’s Dynamite] next week. You always have to stay ready.”
As Knight embarks on what should be yet another transformative year in his career, he knows exactly what he must do in 2026 to make the B-plus from his first 12 months in AEW turn into an A.
“What needs to happen is more connection with the audience, more ring time, more mic time, more executing to the best of our abilities – whether it’s with preparation or winning some singles gold or getting a memorable feud that’s going to stick with the people and something that they can remember,” Knight said. “Give the people something to remember.”
