Max Dupri will no longer be a part of Maximum Male Models, per a report from Wade Keller of PWTorch.
Fightful Select hasn't yet confirmed that news, but Keller's report indicated that Vince McMahon made the decision a couple of weeks ago to write the former LA Knight out. Sofia Cromwell is now portraying Max Dupri's sister Maxxine. Keller said that Dupri was rubbing people the wrong way and wasn't fitting in.
We're told that Max Dupri was unbooked last minute and people associated with the segment weren't given real concrete information on his status as of now. McMahon had taken a particular interest in the Maximum Male Models angle, as it was all his idea. Mace and Mansoor were said to have been on board with the angle but Eli Drake had some reservations about things.
McMahon came to the ring to produce the Maximum Male Models debut segment, which is said to not happen often. McMahon had a distinct vision for how Max Dupri would sound and worked with him quite a bit on it, even saying he wanted the character to sound nothing like LA Knight.
When Fightful Select asked around about Dupri, one source indicated that the former Eli Drake "ruffled some feathers with a couple of scripts" in that he had challenged what some of the writers had come up with. Another source indicated that the best thing that could possibly have happened to Max Dupri was Vince McMahon retiring, because he does still have some supporters in WWE that enjoy his work, hinting that the door wasn't closed for the decision to be reversed.
We've heard from numerous people within the company who put over Dupri's delivery.
There were significant changes to the Smackdown script for July 22 that adjusted plans for the stable, as well. Originally, the beachwear segment that was promoted for next week was supposed to take place on July 22.
