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In case you missed it on Monday Night RAW, there was a tag match between Indi Hartwell/Candice LeRae and Maxxine Dupri/Ivy Nile… Before we get into the specifics of the match, how many of you were honestly clamoring for this match-up. For women’s wrestling, the absolute top tier is strong and has women capable of not only drawing, but consistently having great matches… But after that top tier, there is a major drop-off. This match represents that, with due respect to the hard work and training that the women here have put in, it’s just not exciting.

During the match, however, Maxxine Dupri was trying to do a backwards Worm move but was interrupted mid-move by Candice LeRae who began to shout down Maxxine with the following quote:

• You can’t even do it right! She’s not taking that! You look stupid! Are you serious? Are your serious right now? You’re gonna try that on us? You know why people are booing you, right? Because you don’t belong here. Oh, does that hurt your feelings? If you think the internet hates you, you should hear what the girls in the locker room say. Oh, are you gonna cry? It’s a good thing your dead brother isn’t here to see what an embarrassment you’ve become.

Again, I want to emphasize that Candice LeRae was handed a script… Quit piling on her, internet haters.

But this SCRIPTED promo was a follow-up to a real life situation that occurred. During a houseshow a few weeks ago, Maxxine had a match that apparently wasn’t up to the expectations of the crowd. They began booing and heckling her as she made her way back to the entrance. This has been a hot topic of debate, whether or not fans are allowed to treat her this way or if paying fans can do what they want. Also, who is at fault for this heat? Maxxine for not being more ring-ready, or for the WWE putting her out there too early?

Personally, when any wrestling promotion creates an angle based on negative reactions to fans, it’s when wrestling is at its worst. Why? Because it exposes the business… Candide stopping the match to talk down to a performer for being inexperienced should make every fan wonder “how does an inexperienced wrestler make it to the main WWE roster?”. Just exposes the match… In my opinion, Maxxine was in the right spot. With due respect to Candice, Indi, and Ivy, they really haven’t done much to climb up the WWE main roster ladder. Maxxine is playing off her obvious good looks (not that the others aren’t beautiful, don’t get me wrong here) and her momentum as manager of the Alpha Academy. Her popularity has risen her up the card to be in this random women’s tag match with more experienced talent that aren’t as popular as her.

The stuff with the brother, though… THAT IS SUCH CRAP!!!

Why bring that up? Why involve someone’s horrific story into the context of a wrestling storyline?

There’s so much meat there to complain about Maxxine getting the spotlight because of her looks, and maybe they could allude to her being an image of what the past WWE administration wanted (Vince, Dunn, Laurinaitis). She’s had lucky breaks, while the other 3 ladies in the match have had to work harder and maybe haven’t had lucky breaks? That’s easy to script and use as an angle… A dead brother? That feels like cheap Attitude Era heat that has been done too many times that fans become desensitized to any attempts to generate heat like that.

And let’s be totally honest about Maxxine Dupri… She has HELPED the Alpha Academy get over. We’ve endured the overpushing of Otis for the past 4 years and it’s a challenge to stomach (literally). I just don’t see it folks, especially when the had him briefly be the love interest of Mandy Rose. And then the had him win the 2020 Money in the Bank briefcase? Come on… Having Chad Gable do his “shoosh” stuff has been total cringe. And then, he’s been wrestling like a Kurt Angle clone for the past few years without realizing what made him unique as a talent during the late 2010s in NXT. German Suplexes, pulls down the straps to get made, and then Anklelock. Come on, are we sure you really aren’t the son of Kurt Angle rather than your former tag partner?

Alpha Academy was not taken seriously and were purely a midcard act… Sure, they still aren’t taken seriously, but at least they have some eyecandy to interact with to shake things up with them as a group. It’s not perfect, but I’ll take the Alpha Academy of 2023-2024 versus the 2020-2022 version any day of the week. She, acting as their manager and personality of the group, made them better.

OK, so she isn’t good as a female talent… THEN DON’T LET HER WRESTLE or keep her with midcarders like Candice LeRae, Indi Hartwell, or Ivy Nile in tag matches to limit her exposure while gaining experience at the same time.

But you cannot deny that she’s helped the Alpha Academy become more relevant. Sure, that’s pushing sex appeal, but not everyone has that either. She does and suddenly more eyeballs are watching what Alpha Academy does.

When we have BAD creative ideas like this, you need to be consistent and blame who is in charge. Triple H is in charge and he took the mark bait by making this one-night reaction to Maxxine’s bad houseshow match into a storyline. If this storyline occurred while Vince McMahon as in charge, y’all would be hammering Vince McMahon right now. Be consistent.

While Vince is gone, there’s still a bunch of junk left on that Creative Team and remember, Triple H was taught by Vince (hopefully only on the wrestling stuff and not on the other bad stuff). While HHH has some good ideas to bring to the table, he has also repeatedly tried to push Karrion Kross when none of us want what HHH has tried to serve up with him. Nobody is perfect, but let’s assign blame where it is deserved.

And HHH is the talent manager, too, and has been since mid-2022. If he’s having Maxxine wrestle, then the blame is on him for utilizing her that way.

Just bad stuff all around… Just let Maxxine be an on-air personality and use the God-given (or assisted) assets that he has to draw in wrestling fans. If she can’t handle the in-ring work, then try to mask it or reduce it… DON’T CALL IT OUT INSIDE OF THE DAMN WRESTLING RING, YOU DAMNED IDIOTS!

Any storyline that exposes the business, as Candice calling out Maxxine’s inexperience during the middle of the match, deserves the FINGER OF SHAME. This creative idea trash does not deserve to be on television and there are better ways tell a story or present wrestlers in better lights.

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While appearing on Corey Graves’ After The Bell podcast, Chad Gable provided behind the scenes details regarding the match…

“We had our time allotted, and we knew what we had, and it got cut, like so often happens with what we do. It’s a live TV show, this stuff happens. You’re always prepared for that going in. This was that one time where, and I’m always professional, I do my best to maintain professionalism. We were told, ‘your time is cut, we have to get rid of some stuff.’ I was like, ‘No. We’ll do it. We’ll make it work.’

We won’t be unprofessional and steal other people’s time, but we’re going to do what we planned because this is awesome and people deserve to see this. This whole story we’ve told, where we crammed a lot of stuff into 60-second backstage segments or 45 seconds here to tell a story as quick as we can about me coaching Maxxine and they get 30 seconds to respond. That stuff all worked so well that we got given more time to build to this payout, so we’re going to make the most of this payout. We deserved it, and I felt like we earned the right to do all of our art that night and deliver the masterpiece we got in eight minutes of Raw. I think we did it. It was a moment where I was like, ‘We’re not going to get rid of anything or change anything, let’s just do it.’ It worked out.” (quote courtesy of Jeremy Lambert)

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Gable issued the following statement on Instagram regarding the victory…

“There’s winning championships, and then there’s achieving dreams alongside your best friend. ⁣
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Otis and I have been talking about a night like last night since we were training for the Olympics together in Colorado Springs in 2011. ⁣
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The Alpha Academy relationship is much more than a tag team. It’s been a brotherhood for 10+ years. ⁣
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After getting called up to RAW, I jokingly told Otis there was a house for sale up the street for me if he wanted to move in. Within days, he told me he put it an offer and would be there in a few weeks. ⁣
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Since then, he’s come over nearly every single day for us to leave puddles of sweat in my garage in some of the grittiest training sessions you could ever imagine, all with the goal of continually making progress in this profession and in life. I could not be happier or more proud of this man. ⁣
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My protege. My prized pupil. My #1 guy. But most importantly, my friend. ⁣
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We did it. ⁣
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#AlphaAcademy

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