{"id":350361,"date":"2026-06-13T20:09:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T14:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=350361"},"modified":"2026-06-13T20:09:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T14:39:29","slug":"wwe-pitched-max-dupri-as-roddy-piper-type-character-later-became-awful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/wwe-pitched-max-dupri-as-roddy-piper-type-character-later-became-awful\/","title":{"rendered":"WWE Pitched Max Dupri As Roddy Piper-Type Character, Later Became ‘Awful’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n WWE<\/span>\n <\/div>\n
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Before there was LA Knight on the important roster in WWE, there was Max Dupri, the manager of Maximum Male Models. Knight was only a manager on the time, something he never quite looked comfortable doing alongside the models, Mace and Mansoor. Knight explained to Chris Van Vliet on an episode of “Insight”<\/a> that the Max Dupri character was pitched much otherwise to him, in a way he didn’t initially mind.<\/p>\n

“The bill of products that was sold to me there was that I used to be going to be form of a Roddy Piper within the sense of when Roddy first got here in, he was a manager, a mouthpiece, who sometimes wrestled after which eventually just became a full-time wrestler,” Knight explained. “That was form of the way it was painted to me. There have been another details in there that made me think, ‘This might be okay.’ Then it began moving into directions where I used to be like, ‘That is going to be awful. That is going to be pigeon-holed. We’re stuck. We’re never going to get above a certain trajectory.'”<\/p>\n

Knight said that he was in a terrible mood coming to work every week because the gimmick continued to unfold on television, first with backstage segments alongside General Manager Adam Pearce. He bluntly said that he felt like WWE, and then-chairman Vince McMahon, were killing his profession, as Maximum Male Models was McMahon’s “baby.” McMahon would even come to rehearsals for the model gimmick, something Knight was told he rarely ever did at that time in 2022.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Clashes with Vince McMahon<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/span>\n <\/div>\n
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The boisterous Knight explained that McMahon wanted the Dupri character to speak very softly, and said that he highly doubted the chairman knew anything about him as Knight. He spoke about one moment during rehearsals where McMahon urged him to speak much more softly in front of a live crowd.<\/p>\n

“He goes, ‘Just read me a line from there as softly as you’ll be able to…. Attempt to be [feminine] without being a [feminine,]'” Knight explained. “So then, I’m going to begin reading a line, I’m on the lookout for a line, but as I’m doing that, he keeps talking to me… Then he stops and he goes, ‘What are you doing? I would like you to listen. It is important you listen. At all times listen.’ I’m pondering to myself, ‘You asked me to read a f****** line.'”<\/p>\n

After one more segment in front of the group, Knight was still told he needed to be quieter. He recounted coming back the following week and Pearce asking if anyone had gotten with him that day. Knight said he blew up on Pearce and the author he was working with.<\/p>\n

“He’s like, ‘Well, Vince said that he didn’t feel such as you were listening last week,'” Knight said. “‘He said if you happen to cannot be softer and you are not going to listen, he’s going to seek out one other Maxx Dupri.’ I went, ‘Well you tell him to seek out one other f****** Maxx Dupri.'”<\/p>\n

He said after that, he came upon he had been taken off the road, the identical week the Wall Street Journal story about McMahon’s hush money payments broke and Triple H became head of creative. Knight said that all of it thoroughly could have saved his job.<\/p>\n

For those who use any quotes from this text, please credit “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” and supply a h\/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/article><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WWE Before there was LA Knight on the important roster in WWE, there was Max Dupri, the manager of Maximum Male Models. Knight was only a manager on the time, something he never quite looked comfortable doing alongside the models, Mace and Mansoor. Knight explained to Chris Van Vliet on an episode of “Insight” that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":350362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21056],"tags":[19141,1339,6358,6026,52794,21456,12341,6221],"class_list":["post-350361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wwe-and-more","tag-awful","tag-character","tag-dupri","tag-max","tag-pipertype","tag-pitched","tag-roddy","tag-wwe"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350361"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350364,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350361\/revisions\/350364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}