Posted on 11/07/125 by Colin Vassallo
Maxxine Dupri sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Tampa,
Florida to discuss getting engaged to Anthony Luke and
teaming with her fiancé on WWE live events, her in-ring
progression that included standout matches with Becky Lynch,
working with Nikki Bella, the storyline where her late
brother was brought up, dealing with criticism, and more!
On her WWE progression:
“I felt like I was swimming upstream for a long time, just
that constant treading water, just trying to stay afloat.
But being on the live events has helped me immensely.
Obviously, training is so important, of course, but there’s
just something you can’t mimic about performing in front of
a live crowd. I think for me, a lot of it is the mental side
of it. I need to practice having those nerves, having things
change, not having a ton of time to rehearse something or be
prepared for something new I’ve never done. I was telling
Coach Bloom, I said, thank you so much for putting me on
this loop, because that was my first time doing a triple
threat, and I’m so grateful that I got to do my first triple
threat on a live event instead of on Monday Night Raw. As
cool as it is to have those first experiences on Raw,
there’s just so much you don’t know until you’re in it. So
I’m just so grateful that I’m getting to kind of check off
that checklist on live events.”
On working with Nikki Bella:
“Oh my goodness. It’s a dream, seriously, my Total Divas
dreams. I’m in the locker room with Nattie and Nikki. It’s
unbelievable. It has been so fun. It was Evolution when we
got to do a little spot in the ring together, me, Nattie and
Nikki. And I was like, love that. It was such a cool moment.
I was grateful to be a part of it. I always say, whoever
said don’t meet your heroes, they never met Nikki Bella or
Brie Bella, because they are a thousand times better than
what I imagined. They are the most wholesome, down-to-earth,
kind, loving, beautiful humans you’ll ever meet. We actually
had the best time in Paris with them. Me and Jackie went out
and met up with Nikki and Brie and their photographer who
was with them, Claire. She’s also amazing, which is also a
testament to them. Every single person that is around them,
to their core, is a wonderful human. Everyone I meet, a
manager, whoever, I’m like, wow, you just surround yourself
with such amazing people, it shines through them. But that
night, I learned Brie is hilarious. If she needs a side gig,
she should do comedy. I was crying laughing the whole time.”
On learning from Chad Gable:
“Oh my gosh, so much. He’s actually someone kind of what I
was saying earlier, he’s a man of few words. So when he
tells me something, I take it to heart, because he’s someone
that can look at something creatively. Just the business,
the mind he has for this business, he’s just able to zoom
out and see everything and give me these pointers that I’m
like, duh, why didn’t I think of that? But I would never,
and he sees it so clearly. So I go to him a lot for things
like that, because when it comes to matches and just his
ability to understand this business truly is out of this
world.”
On whether she was ok with her late brother being used in
storylines:
“Yes, 100%. It was that line I said, I was the originator of
the idea. So I said, we had the layout of the match where
she’s going to yell at me and I’m going to walk out of the
ring. And I just felt like if you want me to walk out of the
ring, give me a reason to walk out of the ring. To me, I
didn’t look at it as a negative towards my brother or
towards my situation. To me, it felt like a positive, I get
to bring light to the fact that I have a brother. To me, it
was we’re gonna acknowledge someone that’s my whole world
that passed away, whether she’s saying it in a negative way
or positive way, to me, it was a positive. And I love
Candice, she’s an angel, such a wonderful human, a wonderful
mom. I don’t have anything bad to say about her.”