According to PW Insider, Max Dupri is no more, as WWE has already removed the name from their internal roster.

Disappointing? You bet; for how weird Dupri was at times and for how uncomfortable his work made some folks feel, the fashionable manager unabashedly leaned into the character he was given and made the most of the situation, even if he was almost replaced by his Kayfabe sister, Maxxine Dupri due to his “unsettling” nature.

Fortunately, there is a silver lining to the story initially reported by PW Insider that has since been aggregated by Fightful, and The Wrestling Observer – LA Knight is re-listed on the SmackDown roster.

That's right, after disappearing since his final NXT match versus GUNTHER, it sounds like Knight might be back in the ring before fans know it, which, considering the current state of clever male SmackDown babyfaces, is a welcomed addition indeed.

WWE has finally embraced what LA Knight brings to the table.

To paraphrase a certain former NXT/WWE Superstar, ‘Max Dupri couldn't get the job done.'

When the man who wrestled in the indies as Eli Drake initially arrived in NXT, it felt like his stop in developmental was going to be just that, a stop on his journey towards his final destination of either RAW or SmackDown.

For one thing, he arrived in NXT at the tender age of 38, which is pretty old for a performer working on learning their craft on a developmental brand. While he did the best he could on the Black and Gold brand, embracing his new LA Knight character and giving folks like Cameron Grimes and Grayson Waller fits, his place in the sub-promotion was never that of full-time championship contender but filled a role similar to Dolph Ziggler, Cedric Alexander, or Ricochet when they returned to Orlando. Maybe this is because Knight had, in fact, wrestled in WWE before, as he worked for the promotion from 2013-12 under the name Slate Randall, before embarking on a fantastic indie run that saw the Hagerstown, Maryland native wrestling in NWA, TNA/Impact, Ring of Honor, and Lucha Libre AAA.

Even if he wasn't going to be a member of NXT forever, getting in those 30 matches against the likes of Waller, Grimes, and Solo Sikoa, plus the “finale” of NXT 1.0, WarGames, helped to establish a new, fun character seemingly tailor-made for the main roster – a character that even Vince McMahon couldn't mess up.

Technically, that statement holds up, as Mr. McMahon didn't ruin the LA Knight character, but that's only because he didn't allow the man born Shaun Ricker to use the LA Knight character in the SmackDown ring. No, McMahon instead thought Dupri would be better served in a managerial role, where his reputation as one of the best promo cutters in the game could help to put over younger, more “WWE characters” over who maybe weren't the best on the mic for one reason or another.

Enter Max Dupri, the, um, eccentric proprietor of Maximum Male Models who wanted to surround himself with performers who would be equally at home on the runway as in the ring. His desire to “titillate the juices of your guilty pleasures” is legendary, as were the boos during the group's debut appearance on SmackDown, and even if Paul “Triple H” Levesque's adjusted booking philosophy helped to make the team a bit more palatable in a post-modern, Adult Swim sort of way, folks still clamored for the return of Knight any time his wards, Mansoor and Mace, dropped a match in the ring or had a pose off in the backstage area.

Fortunately for that vocal segment of the WWE Universe, it looks like change is forthcoming, as, after hinting at a character change for some time now, including the famous quote, “sometimes you have to go through the day to get to the (k)night,” Dupri walked out on the Models entirely on the most recent edition of SmackDown, as he punched out Mansoor before declaring his intentions to leave the group.

“Look at this, you guys had a shot and you become clowns,” Dupri declared. “Here you are worrying about posing instead of being out there winning real titles. Man, this ain’t for me anymore, you can 86 that, because quite frankly, I’m not sure if this ever really was for me. Yeah.”

Yeah? Basically, the catchphrase of LA Knight? Oh snap, it's really happening; Knight is coming back, and even if WWE keeps the MMMs going with Maxxine Dupri running the show – which, frankly, they should, as the group is fun comic relief – it's clear Levesque is willing to give his one-time NXT guy a chance to get over Friday nights on Fox.