On the latest “After The Bell” podcast, Corey Graves welcomed Alpha Academy as guests. This year, Alpha Academy has grown in popularity on WWE TV, thanks in part to their storyline with Maxxine Dupri.
Here are the highlights:
Chad Gable on letting loose and showing some character on RAW:
“That is such a feather in our cap, I think, because early on, at least in my career, certainly probably not Otis’ because he’s always been this super entertaining guy, but I know I ran into that, you know, kind of cliche that a lot of guys get on the main roster when they come in as like good wrestlers, or whatever you want to say. ‘Oh man. Yeah, he’s really good in the ring, but he’s got no personality’, and there’s a lot of guys that run into that. I’m here to tell you or the world that I’m in the locker room with these guys every day, every week, and every single one of our superstars has personality, every single one. They’re all very unique in their own way. It’s just that everybody needs to find their way to show it.”
“For me, it took being with my best friend on TV every week and I lucked out with that because not every guy gets that chance, but once we got that chance to be ourselves on TV, I think that just encouraged us, or both to let loose a little bit. Now I find myself not having to think in my head, ‘How am I gonna go out there and be entertaining? How am I gonna go out there and connect with the people?’ It’s about just going out there and being the same version of yourself that you would be in front of your best friend or with your best friend. I think that when people sniff that out, they’re like, he’s being real and we can get on board with that. If it’s real and authentic, people feel it and that’s what they get on board with is what I’ve found, not just this forced, I’m going to try my hardest to try so hard to be entertaining because if you try too hard, they sniff that out too and it almost never works. Just having the time of our lives, man, like being able to be yourself with your best friend on TV, I mean, what’s better than that? Nothing.”
The moment that Gable started being himself on RAW:
“When we started with RK-Bro and they finally gave me a few chances. I remember the first one was there was some people sick and gone from TV or weren’t able to make it to RAW, last minute, and we got thrown out there and right before the show, they’re like, “We’re gonna give you a walking promo, like two minutes’, and so I did it and I did the thank you stuff. My list is this long that I used to do, like stuff that I thought was cool, that I thought was funny. Then it led into like the graduation ceremony where I was doing the Shoosh which it was just stuff that like, in my head I’m going, this is what I like and this is what I do when I’m around my family or the people that I’m vulnerable in front of, so let me try this stuff for once. I did it and it was like the next week, that’s all people talked about was the stuff I thought was kind of dumb, the Shoosh, the thank you, and I’m like, wow, it works. The stuff that I enjoy but think is dumb, but it’s funny at the same time, that’s what people like. So when that switch went off, it’s like, you don’t have to be so reserved and timid all the time. Just do what feels right. It’s not going to work every time. Everything’s not gonna land and be a hit, but do what feels right. Go with your gut a lot of the time, and it seemed to work out and it still is. So that was kind of my little A-ha period there.”
Otis on having their time cut during the Viking Rules match against the Viking Raiders on RAW:
“It was one of those moments where we had our time allotted and we knew what we had. It got cut like so often happens in what we do. You know, it’s a live TV show, so this stuff happens and you’re always kind of prepared for that going in. But this is like this one time where, and I’m always a professional, I do my best to maintain professionalism, but we were told, ‘Your time is cut, we got to get rid of some stuff’, and I was like, ‘No, we’ll make it work and we’re not gonna be unprofessional and steal other people’s time, but we’re going to do what we plan because this is awesome and people deserve to see this.” It deserves to be this whole story we’ve told where we’ve crammed a lot of stuff in there like 60 second backstage segments or we’ve given been given 45 seconds here to tell a story as quick as we can about me coaching Maxine. Then they get 30 seconds to respond in a backstage later and that stuff all worked so well that we were given more and more time to build to this payoff. So we’re going to make the most of this path. We deserved it. I felt like we earned the right to be able to do like our art that night if you want to call it that and deliver the little masterpiece that we got in there, like eight minutes of RAW, and I think we did it. It was the one moment where I was like we’re not gonna get rid of anything or change anything. Let’s just do it boys and I think it worked out.”
Gable talking about the dedication Maxxine Dupri is putting into her character:
“So very, very endearing person. I think that’s the thing that is winning the audience’s heart with her is there’s something about her that just endears her to everybody. She’s humble. She’s willing to learn, really hungry, ready to learn. You can tell that she’s been just waiting for this opportunity.”
“You know, she’s been doing this stuff with the models for a long time, and to their credit, those guys are awesome and she was awesome with them. They’re so entertaining. They go out of their way to do stuff on their own, shoot a bunch of stuff for social, all this stuff and it was so entertaining. We got a chance to work with those guys overseas on tour for a few dates and we had these great matches that got better every night, so entertaining, but they never got their chance to break out. Now I feel like she’s just been clamoring for that. She’s finally been given this opportunity and she’s just running with it man. She makes her own gear. She’s training on her own during the week when she’s not at TV. She’s coming up with ideas. She’s making us take pictures that we don’t want to take all the time.”
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
