When Hit Row was released by WWE in 2021, it's fair to say the vast majority of fans were shocked. After all, the group - made up Swerve Strickland, Ashante "Thee" Adonis, Top Dolla, and B-Fab - had found great success in NXT.
With Vince McMahon calling the shots at the time, it was hardly surprising to see another batch of Superstars from the developmental brand struggle on the main roster, but to ditch them all...well, it was a baffling decision.
Strickland went on to sign with AEW in 2022 and has since become one of the company's top stars. The other members returned to WWE in 2022, with B-Fab now on SmackDown and Adonis sent back to NXT (Top Dolla was released in 2023).
Talking to djvlad, Strickland revealed the specific incident he believes led to them being released by WWE and pointed to Top Dolla being the issue.
"We meet with Vince or whatever. Apparently, one of the members of the group was just, they complained at the office because he was calling, asking her for her flight, what’s going on. They’re like, 'We can’t disclose that information to you.' He’s like, 'What?' He started getting aggressive on the phone apparently at Titan Towers. So we’re meeting with Vince. We have to talk to Vince about this because he was apparently upset with it. He was like, 'First off, that’s none of your business. You’re a talent, you do this. You worry about what you do. Don’t worry about anybody else, even if it’s in your group. You worry about what you do. That’s how we do here. That’s a respect thing.'"
"We’re just sitting there in the hallway of this arena, Bruce Prichard behind him, [John] Laurinaitis behind him, and Vince is right here, and they’re just sitting there, standing like puppy dogs, watching Vince just bark at us [laughs]. I was just like, wow. I think that heat got on us right there. He’s just like, 'Nobody just asks for a meeting with me. There’s people that work for me 15 years that’s never had a meeting with me.' I was like, 'Oh, cool. I feel honored now.' We got a little bit of scolding, but it was just the one member of the group that made that call, and apparently, who he was talking to in the office complained about he was 'aggressive' on the phone or whatever. Who’s to say how that conversation actually went? Probably a recorded phone call somewhere, I don’t know."
"But real quick, Vince was talking about that, and then he switched it like, 'But we’re gonna have a lot of fun tonight, guys. We’re gonna have a lot of fun. We got some good stuff for you coming up.' I was like okay, cool. We did a segment with Sami Zayn on SmackDown. Came in the back, shook Vince’s hand, [he’s] like, 'That was great. You gotta smile. Make sure you put that smile on out there, whatever.' Cool, cool. Go to the back of the locker room. We were like, 'Okay, I think that went well.' Then Sami Zayn comes back, he’s like, 'Apparently, Vince didn’t like it. Vince hated it.' We’re like, we just saw him five minutes ago. He’s like, 'Yup, apparently, he just didn’t like it.' Okay."
Without naming him, Strickland highlighted "the big guy" upsetting someone backstage following the incidents detailed above and suggested both that and an injury were the beginning of the end for Hit Row in WWE.
"Next thing you know, one of the group members gets appendicitis. He can’t wrestle. So now it’s just left [to] me and the big guy to have these tag matches. Apparently, he upset somebody in the back somewhere, somehow. I’ll never forget to this day, it was before the show, rehearsal and everything. We go over the segment. I come through the back, and Bruce Prichard’s just sitting by himself in the Gorilla Position. He’s like, ‘Hey, Swerve.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah?’ He’s like, ‘You know you’re the veteran of this group, right? You’ve been doing this the longest. You have the most experience.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I do.’ He’s like, ‘Alright, take control.’ I was like, ‘Okay.'"
"Two weeks later, we all get let go. That was the last time…then all these reports coming out about what happened, what possibly happened, and it was like speculative heat, major heat on one individual that caused everybody to get released and all that, which might have been true. Then I’m hearing from talents I’m close with, they’re like, ‘Yeah, it was him. Yeah, it was him.’ I’m like, damn. Then, 90 days until I can get hired and get a new job."
McMahon's biggest blunder was freeing up Strickland to go to AEW. While he's made a name for himself there, we have to believe the door is open to Swerve returning to WWE now that Triple H is calling the shots.