LA Knight details early frustrations after WWE call-up, bizarre Vince McMahon instructions
LA Knight recently reflected on his WWE main-roster call-up and conversation with Vince McMahon.
Despite being one of the most popular and over wrestlers on the WWE roster, Knight has not yet enjoyed a dominant main-roster run. In addition to his current lack of direction, Knight also had some early main-roster call-up frustrations.
In a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, the former WWE United States Champion recalled his jump to the main roster and transition to Max Dupri from LA Knight.
“Vince [McMahon] told me before, ‘You gotta talk soft, I don’t want you to say or do any of the things that you used to do, none of that, whatever.’ If I’m honest, though, he wasn’t familiar with any of it. He didn’t know LA Knight. I think he was told a little bit,” Knight said.
The 43-year-old further said that while McMahon was impressed with his singles match against Roderick Strong, he hesitated because of his age. McMahon was allegedly not interested in pushing a 39-year-old Knight and instead wanted him as a manager.
“That first day of introducing the models, and we’re doing the little rehearsal thing, talk-through. And he comes down, and he’s like, ‘I need you to talk softer.’ And I’m like, okay, well, I’m thinking like, you had me talking soft in the backstage, but like now I’m doing a presentation. I need to be a little bigger, right? To present to the people. But it’s his show. Sure. And he goes, ‘Just read me a line from there as softly as you can.’ He’s like, ‘I don’t think you can be effeminate, but try and be effeminate without being effeminate.’ What?” he added.
What was the idea behind LA Knight’s Max Dupri character in WWE?
Further continuing the conversation, Knight recalled how he was initially given the impression that the Max Dupri character would take a trajectory similar to Roddy Piper.
“The bill of goods that was sold to me there was that I was going to be kind of a Roddy Piper. In the sense of when Roddy first came in, he was like a manager, a mouthpiece that then sometimes wrestled, and then eventually just became a full-time wrestler. That was kind of how it was painted to me.”
Paired with Maxxine Dupri on the main roster, the Max Dupri character never took off, and the former champion was slowly transitioned back into his LA Knight character.
Shounak Chakrabarti is an experienced sports journalist with a lifelong passion for athletics and storytelling. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Journalism from the University of Leeds and joined F4WOnline in 2025.
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