When LA Knight first debuted with NXT he quickly became one of the top stars on the brand. It seemed that LA Knight was likely to find success on the main roster, but when he was called up WWE changed his name to Max Dupri and made him the managed of Maximum Male Models.
The Max Dupri character didn’t really work out for LA Knight as he eventually reverted back to his original name. Prior to Max Dupri taking on the LA Knight name once again there were a lot of rumors circulating regarding Vince McMahon being unhappy with the character.
Recently Mace spoke to Denise Salcedo about the creation of the Max Dupri character and he shared his take on why Vince McMahon was seemingly frustrated with the performance.
“When we found out about the Maximum Male Models thing they told us we’re gonna have LA Knight as our manager. Surely, you mean Robert Stone. Like, Robert Stone would have been a perfect Max Dupri. But they were like, ‘No. Vince wants LA Knight to be Max Dupri.'”
“To his credit he also dove all the way in with us. He was out there on the frontline, on the battlefield of fashion. For whatever reason it seemed like Vince had it out for him specifically. I don’t know. Maybe he expected something else when he said, ‘I want him to be…’ Maybe he did think he was getting Robert Stone. It just felt like he wanted Max to be something that he wasn’t, and when he wasn’t that thing that he was not it upset him. That’s how we ended up with Maxxine because he just got replaced, but it worked out for him.”
LA Knight managed to become one of the most popular stars in WWE this year and he rode that wave of momentum to an Undisputed WWE Universal Championship match with Roman Reigns at Crown Jewel. Unfortunately for Knight he didn’t win the gold, but he will be facing Randy Orton and AJ Styles in a triple threat match on the 1/5 episode of SmackDown with the winner going on to challenge Roman Reigns for his title at the Royal Rumble.
Stay tuned for more updates on LA Knight as they become available.
