LA Knight talks Max Dupri character

[Chris]

LA Knight says that his age played a factor in WWE's decision to re-brand him as Max Dupri on the main roster.

Previously known as Eli Drake, the 40-year-old signed with WWE in early 2021. He adopted the LA Knight persona in NXT until making his main roster debut in January 2022. Upon being called up, Knight was re-branded as Max Dupri, manager of The Maximum Male Models. He recently told Daily Mail that WWE transitioned him to a manager's role due to concerns over his age.

Knight said:

I come up for a dark match, I get the attention of the right people; "hey, who is this guy?" but then the age thing comes up - [whispers] "oh no, he’s 40, danger’. But I’m not the average 40-year-old. I haven’t gone through the ringer. I haven’t had a bunch of surgeries or injuries, knock on that wood. I’ve lived a good, youthful life in a certain sense and I’ve taken care of myself in a way I would say most don’t.
And also, I look a certain way where obviously I’ve got somebody’s attention. But that number came up and it was like "well ok, maybe we make him a manager." So Some things happened there. It was not my cup of tea and definitely I don’t think it was for me. But somehow, there I was. Some things happened that we don’t need to go into and then eventually LA Knight was back.'

Our own Dave Meltzer reported in the August 2, 2022, edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, that Vince McMahon made the call to remove Knight from the Maximum Male Models after being upset with how he was delivering his lines. Knight was also said to have been critical of some of WWE's scripting at the time.

However, shortly after Knight was removed from the group, McMahon "retired." With Triple H taking the reigns of WWE creative, Knight says he lobbied for a return to the character he portrayed in NXT.

Knight continued:

I was kinda pushing for it but didn’t know if it was really a possibility at that point because we just established this thing to this larger audience. The NXT audience is what it is, just under a million or whatever, and now you’re looking at over two million for Smackdown. So there’s a bunch of people who had never even seen LA Knight before and they’d only seen this other thing. So now, can we just change gears? So now, I think it’s a testament to his trust and a testament to my abilities to be able to turn that corner in such short order and have people not even barely remember there was another.'

Up next for Knight will be the men's Money in the Bank ladder match on July 1 in London. He qualified for the match by defeating Montez Ford on SmackDown earlier this month.

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/la-knight-says-concern-over-age-led-to-max-dupri-character-in-wwe

 

[Chris]

At Money in the Bank this Saturday, LA Knight is one of the favorites to win the men's ladder match.

But main roster stardom wasn't guaranteed for Knight. While appearing on Insight with Chris Van Vliet ahead of this weekend's pay-per-view, Knight said he thought he was going to be fired by WWE in 2022. Knight debuted on the WWE main roster as Max Dupri in May of last year. In October, he reverted back to being LA Knight.

Vince McMahon was in charge of WWE creative when Knight debuted as Max Dupri, but Paul "Triple H" Levesque took control when McMahon "retired" last July.

Knight told Van Vliet that he's pretty sure he was going to be fired by WWE last year and it just hadn't officially happened yet. Knight said he then got a FaceTime informing him that WWE wanted to keep him around.

Well, let me just go ahead and say this. I'm pretty sure I was fired and it just hadn't officially happened yet. Without getting into too many details, some things happened, I don't remember what it was, but some things happened. And then I had gotten a FaceTime: ‘Hey, you know, we want to keep you around. We want to do this, this, that, whatever.' And, okay, cool. Good. So somehow I had been saved from being thrown off the cliff. At least this is my interpretation of it. Maybe I'm incorrect. I don't know.

Knight said he thinks the reason fans have responded to him is because LA Knight is a heightened version of who he is in real life. He doesn't have to think about who LA Knight is as a character like he did with Max Dupri.

So, eventually, just things kind of worked out. I think that maybe again -- maybe some of the testament to why things are working the way they are and the people are reacting the way they are is because one of these was not me. And I didn't know who it was. And one of these is very much just me. Like, I don't have to think about LA Knight. I don't really have to dig in like, 'What is this? Who am I? What am I doing?' I just go and do because it's just me heightened.

Knight, Logan Paul, Ricochet, Shinsuke Nakamura, Damian Priest, Santos Escobar, and Butch are the participants for this year's men's Money in the Bank ladder match. The PPV is taking place at The O2 Arena in London on Saturday.

The full interview with Knight on Insight can be seen below:

 

[Deezy]

Wow homeboy talking in word salads.....with too much dressing.