Dupri speaks highly of the talents she’s been paired with in her career thus far.
Present day, Maxxine Dupri is officially a member of Alpha Academy alongside Chad Gable and Otis. The trio were most recently featured on the 5/29 episode of Monday Night Raw.
Maxxine’s journey to where she is now was discussed during her appearance on Ryan Satin’s Out of Character podcast. Taking a look back at her time in NXT, she shared that she suffered a fractured fibula. With hindsight, she looks at it as a blessing because she was not doing much in NXT and then the promoting of the Maxxine Dupri character began.
Initially, she thought there was no way she would be slotted for the role as she wasn’t healed yet. The Thursday before SmackDown, she was contacted by WWE’s travel department about being at TV. She later had a discussion with the NXT lead writer who confirmed to her that she was going to be ‘Maxxine Dupri’ and she added that her flight was scheduled to depart in four hours.
Well this is actually interesting because I’ve never talked about this or posted this but actually, I fractured my fibula and that happened in… I wanna say May? Maybe May or June. So, I think of that in hindsight as actually a really big blessing because I wasn’t doing much in NXT because I was injured. So I think when they were looking at who’s gonna be Maxxine, that, for me, ended up being a positive thing and allowed me to heal and whatnot. So I was in NXT for a little bit, working with Von (Wagner) and (Robert) Stone which was amazing, it was so much fun and obviously wasn’t doing very much because Stone was managing Von and I’m kind of with them so I would get a few lines here and there but I still think it was just, okay, she’s new. Let’s just, you know, dip her toes in it. Then, they started kind of advertising, oh, this new character Maxxine is gonna join Maximum Male Models and I think they promoted it for three weeks and I didn’t know the whole time. I had no idea… So the week before, they were actually in Orlando and we all went and watched and they advertised it again… and I was like hmm, it has to be someone who could be L.A. Knight’s sister and I’m just like, there’s no way. I’m not ready yet and I’m not healed. There’s just no way. So then, fast forward to the next week which is the week that Maxxine is supposed to debut, Wednesday night, I go to sleep, I don’t get a text or anything so I’m like, okay, it’s not me. But I had this weird gut feeling. I don’t know why but I was like, uh, it’s not me. Okay. Next opportunity. I wake up Thursday morning to go to training at 7 AM and I have a text from travel and they’re like, ‘Hey, we need you for SmackDown tomorrow. I’m booking your travel’ and I was like, that’s interesting so I text the lead writer at NXT and I’m like, ‘Hey, I heard I’m needed for SmackDown. Do you know what’s going on?’ But they didn’t answer yet so I had skull which is where we just go and watch film so I go and I watch film and I pulled my coach aside being like, ‘Hey, I got this text. I don’t know if I’m flying out today, I don’t know what’s going on.’ He’s like, ‘They probably just wanna see you in person or maybe they’re bringing Von up for a dark match or whatever,’ and then, now it’s like 10 AM. So I finally get to meet with the lead writer and he’s like, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know. I heard I’m needed for SmackDown.’ He was like, ‘Oh. I haven’t checked my email. Let me do that’ and then he looks and he says, ‘Alright. You’re Maxxine. You’re flying out today’ and my flight was in four hours. So then I literally ran home, had to get a spray tan, was not gonna be pale. Got a spray tan, packed my bag and hit the road and then it took off from there.
After L.A. Knight left Maximum Male Models, the group consisted of Maxxine, ma.ce and man.soor. She credited them for looking after her.
I mean, they fully took me under their wing (Dupri said about ma.ce & man.soor). I did not know what I was doing. I was like, I’m just showing up and rolling with the punches and hoping for the best and they had both taught me so much and just taking such good care of me. I feel like they always looked out for me and even if we’re traveling together, I just feel really, really grateful. With my experience, even with L.A. Knight, they’ve just all been really — put such a positive insight on my career and I’m just so thankful for that.
Maxxine’s chemistry with Gable and Otis was talked about and she feels it’s been easy and natural. Dupri feels blessed to have been paired with the talents she has been with.
I’m having so much fun working with them (Alpha Academy) and they’re another two that have just been so generous and kind to me and I’m just thankful for anyone I get to work with and learn from and I feel so blessed that I just keep getting paired with such talented people that just give me so much. So I’m really, really grateful for that and I think the chemistry with them has honestly just been easy, it’s felt natural. Obviously, Otìsè is hilarious and I love playing into it and kind of going back to the whole ‘momager’ thing, I feel like I’m really getting to lean into that.
In a separate interview, Dupri said she is prepared to make her WWE in-ring debut.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Out of Character with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
