Maxxine Dupri’s first day on WWE’s main roster involved a fractured ankle, an emergency trip to the mall and a five-minute in-ring promo she had never rehearsed. She says the promo getting scrapped might be the only reason she still has a job.
Speaking on the Nikki and Brie Show, Dupri walked through the July 22, 2022 SmackDown that introduced her as Maxxine Dupri, the storyline sister of Max Dupri and director of talent for Maximum Male Models. She had been working NXT as Sofia Cromwell, a valet for Von Wagner alongside Robert Stone, when her body gave out and the call-up came anyway.
“Then I fractured my ankle being suplexed in June, and they still had me on TV. I was just like in a boot and couldn’t walk,” Dupri said. “And then I got called up like two weeks later or two to four weeks later. My ankle was not anywhere near healed.”
The instructions she got on arrival did not account for that.
“My first day, I landed and they said, hey, Vince wants you in a black dress and heels. Well, I packed 100 outfits. I did not pack a black dress. I didn’t even think I packed heels because I couldn’t wear a heel,” Dupri said. “I woke up, I went to the mall, I found a black dress, I found these super high heels, and I can’t even step in them because my ankle won’t go like this.”
The bigger problem was what she had been booked to do with them.
“It was originally supposed to be an in-ring promo, and I can’t get to the ring, so we’re doing rehearsals, and I’m like, if the ring shakes, I’m gonna fall over, and they’re like, we’ll just bring you out in the dark, it’ll be fine,” Dupri said.
Then the day got away from everyone. Dupri said something happened within the company that shut the day down, though she did not specify what. Her debut fell on the same day Vince McMahon announced his retirement as WWE chairman and CEO.
“That was a very chaotic day. Some things happened in the company that day, so we ended up having to shut down rehearsals and have this meeting, and because of that, there was no time to go back and finish rehearsing,” Dupri said. “So they were like, we’re gonna shift this to a backstage, and I was like, thank God, yes.”
She said the change likely saved her.
“I had never done an in-ring promo. It was supposed to be a five-minute in-ring promo. I don’t know why I would be here today if that happened. I’d never even done one in promo class,” Dupri said. “By the grace of God, we’re still here. I survived that first day.”
Dupri went to the Performance Center that week with Maximum Male Models teammates Brennan Williams and Mansoor Al-Shehail, who worked the promo with her on the assumption it was simply being pushed a week.
“We drilled that in-ring promo because we thought we were doing it the next week. They were in there critiquing me, helping me, teaching me everything, and then the story shifted and we continued on,” Dupri said. “That first day I was like, how I got here, I don’t know what’s happening, and I’m just trying to stay employed.”
Nearly four years on, Dupri said the learning curve has never really flattened, because she came in with no wrestling background and has picked it up in real time.
“They know I wasn’t trained and I was learning on the road, but there are so many moves I’ve just never taken or given. And then I’m on the road, like, okay, can you do this? And I’m like, yep. And then I’m like, who’s gonna teach me?” Dupri said.
Her solution is to find someone who does know.
“I will run to the back and I will text Chelsea Green and say, how do I take a barricade?” Dupri said. “She’ll be like sending me bullet points of here’s what you’re gonna do.”
Dupri is now a former WWE Women’s Intercontinental Champion and a member of The Vision on Raw.
