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.”