Swerve Strickland Recalls Being ‘Scolded’ By Vince McMahon, Details How Top Dolla Got Backstage Heat

Swerve Strickland tells all about the days leading up to his WWE release.

Swerve Strickland says that the days and weeks leading up to his WWE release were just plain weird.

When Isiah Swerve Scott, along with his Hit Row stable mates, were called up to WWE Smackdown in the 20221 WWE Draft, the future looked bright for the newly formed group. Things went sour quickly though, as the group would only appear on the blue brand for a few weeks before B-Fab was released on November 4th and the rest of the group, consisting of Scott, Ashante “Thee” Adonis, and Top Dolla, were all released a few days later on November 18th.

In a new interview with Chris Jericho, Strickland went into detail about the beginning of Hit Row’s time on the main roster and how B-Fab’s release came very quick.

“We flew out and did another backstage promo from the New Day, without Big E, he was on Raw with the WWE Title. The week after that, we were getting flight information and [B-Fab] didn’t have any. We were like ‘Wait, what’s going on?’. So [Top Dolla] called and made sure everything with the flight info was good and they said ‘No, this is good, everything is good. She’s not needed this week.’ Then like mid-flight [to the show], our phones start buzzing and everything and we see that she’s been released along with a bunch of other releases. We were just like ‘Oh, what?’ Especially as a female that can talk with the guys in the group as much. This is our Nicki Minaj right here to our Young Money. So, that kind of put a damper on a lot of things.”

Strickland then revealed that he and Top Dolla received a bit of a ‘scold session’ after Dolla had called about B-Fab’s flight information.

“Apparently [Top Dolla] calling and contacting, asking about flight information for [B-Fab] and all that, that was like a no-no. So we had a talk with Vince [McMahon], [Bruce] Pritchard and [John] Laurinaitis in the hallway of the arena. It was like, a little bit of a scold session but at the end it turned out ‘Oh don’t worry, we got a lot of fun stuff planned’ and Vince started laughing. It was mainly like on [Top Dolla] and stuff, [they] were like ‘No, you don’t do that’. But then it turned into a positive way, [they were like] ‘This is what we’re gonna do tonight, gonna do something with Sami Zayn. It’s gonna be fun, we’re gonna have a good time’. We were like ‘Okay, alright. Cool.’ That’s all we heard of it.”

Things seemed to be back on track for Hit Row after that bump in the road, but the controversial rap that Top Dolla released about Jinder Mahal supposedly caused some issues too.

“Then we did something the following week with Jinder Mahal and the rap performance thing in the back. Then Jinder responded in a rap, then AJ did a social media rap thing that was deemed offensive. He used an Indian instrumental/beat or whatever, and it was deemed offensive and he didn’t get clearance for that. You know the red tape you gotta go through to clear certain things you wanna do individually on social media. Jinder approved it and thought it was funny, thought it was great.”

When the remaining members of Hit Row began to experience the same travel issues that B-Fab had, the writing on the wall began to show itself.

“We were getting travel for Survivor Series, then it went away. It got back [to us] that we were doing SmackDown, just SmackDown and that was it. Then that went away. Then we were doing Smackdown, Raw and Survivor Series. Literally an hour later we got calls from [John] Laurinaitis​​​​​​​ saying that we were all let go. So it was just really weird.”

Ashantee Thee Adonis recalled those same travel problems in an interview with Busted Open last year. To see his full comments, click here.

Since being released, Scott reverted back to his old Swerve Strickland name and joined the AEW roster. Adonis, who now goes by Tehuti Miles, and Top Dolla, who goes by his real name AJ Francis, have competed twice on the independent scene as a tag team. B-Fab however, has yet to wrestle a match outside of WWE.

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