Swerve Strickland was a World Champion before joining AEW, and had a strong run with WWE, but his career took off in a major way after signing with Tony Khan’s promotion. However, there are still unresolved real-life issues from his time with WWE, and those issues are now bubbling back to the surface of the wrestling world.
Swerve was pushed in WWE NXT as a member of Hit Row, along with “Top Dolla” AJ Francis, Ashante “Thee” Adonis, and Briana “B-Fab” Brandy. They were drafted to SmackDown in the 2021 WWE Draft, but released around one month later. The faction made a surprise return in August 2022, but without Swerve, who had been with AEW for several months.
Strickland appeared on VladTV this past March, and aired out behind-the-scenes issues with Hit Row, taking the other former members by surprise. Francis then responded on social media, and in an interview with Unlikely’s Adrian Hernandez.
Francis appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show this week and was asked about the problems between he and Strickland. He recalled seeing Strickland at the Chris Bey benefit show held earlier this year.
“Man, ask him. When you have him here, ask him. [Helwani: what’s happening?] You won’t find one interview with me bringing him up first. [Helwani: yeah, I know] You won’t find one. [Helwani: but you were cool right?] Yeah, we was cool until a couple months ago, apparently. We was cool until a week before his interview came out. Shout-out to Chris Bey, I saw him at Chris Bey’s benefit show, and everything was cool, no problems, everything was cool,” AJ Francis said.
AJ Francis continued, recalling his reaction to Swerve Strickland’s VladTV interview.
“Then the interview came out and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m just gonna clear the record, say what actually happened.’ We’re not talking in innuendos, let’s talk about what actually happened, and I ain’t talked about him since unless somebody else bring him up, that’s just me. [Helwani: which I did, we’ll figure that out] It’s OK, I knew that you would,” AJ Francis said.
AJ Francis Speak On Swerve Strickland Issues Surrounding Hit Row
Ariel Helwani then asked about AJ’s Adrian Hernandez interview, wondering if anything has changed since then. Francis confirmed that he and Swerve Strickland do not speak, and never really did.
“Oh, no. I mean, we haven’t talked. I mean, we don’t talk. Even when we were in Hit Row, there was the three of us, and then he was part of that, so that’s why when we came back, we called ourselves The OG 3 because we were Hit Row, right? And it made all the sense for him to be added to Hit Row: he was already on TV, he had TV equity, he’s a really good wrestler. I’ve never said… he’s a great wrestler, as far as in-ring wrestling, he’s incredible. He’s one of the best to ever do it, but everything we was doing in Hit Row, we already had, so I didn’t even want to be the ‘leader of Hit Row’ in fact, you can even find promo where we said there is no leader in Hit Row, we’re all equals,” AJ Francis said.
The former Top Dolla continued with thoughts on the Hit Row leadership debacle, and how there was never a leader. He noted that this applied to Swerve Strickland and any other member.
“But people just decided they wanted him to be the leader, right? So then we get called up to the main roster off of something the fans completely made up about him being the leader, when we all said, including him, all said there’s no leaders. When we got called up and some report [claimed Swerve and Ashante would be the tag team, I would be the leader] and people [complained about me being the leader]. We never said none of this. None of this ever happened, y’all made this whole thing up, but that’s just the way wrestling works,” AJ Francis said.
WWE released Francis again in September 2023, and has been with TNA since January 2024. Ashante Adonis is still working NXT, and B-Fab is still on SmackDown. Swerve Strickland remains a top AEW star.