AJ Francis was a recent guest on Busted Open Radio to discuss his release from WWE and why he thinks the company dropped the ball on the Hit Row group. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Says WWE had no idea how to use Hit Row:
I feel like they didn’t have an idea of how to use Hit Row. I feel like the idea of the hip-hop stable just didn’t really gel with what they had creatively and what they wanted to do creatively. The music videos that you guys see me release every week, I was doing them every week while I was there. They didn’t really have an idea or a way to integrate them into the show. Even when they asked me to do a diss song, and I did a diss song on The O.C., and it got millions of views online, and it went viral, and it was one of the biggest things people talked about that week in wrestling.
Recalls Hit Row feuding with The OC and their never being a follow up match:
Then we had the tag team match, they beat us. AJ Styles gives me the Phenomenal Forearm, which was awesome, by the way, to be able to do that, and then it was funny because he told me afterwards, he was like, ‘I’m glad you were where you were supposed to be.’ Because if you look at it on tape, when he jumps off the top rope, he does the springboard, his hood comes up, and he said he couldn’t see at all. So he was just happy I was where I was supposed to be. But then that was the end of it. There was no follow-up on that. There was no continuation of the storyline. We could have done a million things. So I genuinely feel like they just didn’t know what they wanted to do with Hit Row, and they had different plans clearly, for the three of us.
Says he’s happy that B-Fab and Ashonte Thee Adonis is still in WWE:
I’m just happy that Brianna and Tehuti, which is B-Fab and Ashante ‘Thee’ Adonis, I’m happy that they’re still there, I’m happy they’re still getting money, I’m happy that they seem to be getting involved on the show. So I have no ill will towards anyone there. It’s just, now I gotta worry about me. I’m worried about me. I don’t care about nobody else but me. That’s why I don’t want to be in no factions. I don’t want to be in no groups. I don’t want to be in no tag teams. I’m tired of people pretending that I need other people. I can do it by myself, and I’m gonna do it by myself.
Francis was released by WWE back in the fall of 2023. His full interview can be found below.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
