fightful

How Hit Row Found Out They Were Called Up

Added 2022-05-16 17:44:10 +0000 UTC

Fightful spoke to the former Top Dolla, AJ Francis.

He told us that Hit Row found out while at Smackdown that they'd be getting the call up last year. He says he went up to Johnny Ace and asked why he hadn't been called up for a dark match, which Johnny appreciated and booked him for an appearance in October. Two days before the scheduled October 1, 2021 dark match, all of Hit Row was booked for travel, and he assumed they were being called up.

He wasn't sure of it until a FOX exec approached him and accidentally informed him he was being called up. The exec said the writing team would be getting with them soon because they were aware Hit Row liked to write their own stuff. As of then, Hit Row hadn't been told they were called up, so that was the first they'd heard about it. The FOX exec even used wrestling lingo and asked them to "kayfabe it" since he accidentally told them. They had no idea they were getting drafted or that they'd be third round picks before that.

A couple of years ago, Fightful Select reported that the former Top Dolla, AJ Francis, was considered to host Raw Underground. Francis confirmed that to Fightful recently.

Francis got a call from Edge, who had been helping out with WWE creative during an injury, and asked for some promos. He'd been in a meeting with Vince McMahon regaring who was going to host Raw Underground, and Edge himself thought that Top Dolla would fit the bill. However, due to the fact that Francis was already on the road doing Most Wanted Treasures it eliminated him from the running. Francis said that he would have been happy to accept the opportunity, but was also ecstatic to be working on the A&E show.

Shane McMahon ended up hosting, with Briana joining.

Other notes to from our interview included Francis saying he only spoke to Vince McMahon three times, but that he was pleasant in all of those conversations.