LA Knight found success in WWE NXT, but in 2022 when he was called up to the main roster, he was converted into a manager as Max Dupri where he was the Maximum Male Model’s talent agent.
He was later repackaged after Triple H took over main roster creative following Vince McMahon’s resignation and reverted back to the Knight gimmick.
While speaking with the Daily Mail, Knight noted that there was an internal concern about his age and that’s why he was turned into a manager. He caught the attention of WWE officials after working a dark match.
“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.”
Knight continued, “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.”
Knight noted that he pushed to go back to the Knight gimmick, but didn’t know if it was a real possibility because he only portrayed it in NXT. He put himself over for his ability to change characters and make people forget about the Max Dupri character.
