When Triple H took over WWE creative from his father-in-law, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, he found himself in a precarious situation. After spending the better part of half a decade building up the brand's developmental system, filling out the Performance Center in Orlando with a potent combination of NIL athletes and indie darlings, Levesque found many of his “AAA” talents – think baseball, not Lucha Libre – gone, either released during the pandemic or allowed to leave in free agency for greener pastures.
Fortunately, with money available and a potent pitch to do NXT-style storytelling on the main roster, “Triple H guys” started to return in droves, with a dozen or so former performers making their way back onto the WWE landscape. Dakota Kai and IYO SKY became champions, Gunther was pushed to the moon, and Hit Row, even down their leader – now known as Swerve Strickland – returned too, even if their act hasn't been met with the same success. Discussing how their return came to be on Wrassle Rap, Hit Row explained how their return came together and their relationship with Triple H through the process.
“I was feeling some type of way and the day after SummerSlam, I was like, ‘I'm just going to text Hunter [Triple H] and say what's up and tell him how I feel,'” Adonis said via Fightful. “I literally sent him a book, a whole message, just telling him how I felt. He got back to me the next morning and was like, ‘Let's talk soon.”
“Me and Hunter never stopped talking, even after we got released,” Top Dolla added. “We would always text once in a while, we're not like best friends, but we would text once in a while. Just like Ashante, I'm watching SummerSlam and I see IYO (SKY) and Dakota (Kai) come back and I was like, ‘that's so cool that they get to come back. I wonder if they want to bring Hit Row back.' In my mind, I'm thinking that, but in my mind, ‘he's probably got a long list of other people they want to bring back.' He did, obviously, have a long list of people he wanted to bring back. I'm thinking, if he brings us back, it would be two, three, six months from now. After SummerSlam, he texts me like two days later. ‘Do you have anything right now? When can I have you?' ‘Tomorrow, if you want.' The next couple of days, we had a Skype call with all three of us and a week later, we re-debuted.”
Though Hit Row did attempt to get things going on the indies at least somewhat, working two matches under the moniker The HitMakerZ for MCW and GCW, respectively, the group simply felt built for WWE, and few promotions outside of the Big-3 wrestling promotions can stage their schtick in a believable way. Though they haven't been used on television in a minute, it would appear Hit Row are happy to be back in WWE, even if they aren't being used in the way they might have expected.
Top Dolla discusses Hit Row's freestyle promo before Bray Wyatt's attack.
Elsewhere in their conversation with Wrassle Rap, Hit Row discussed their now-infamous rapping segment that was ultimately interrupted by Bray Wyatt as he prepared for an eventually-dropped angle for WrestleMania 39, Top Dolla explained what he was asked to do on the day of the show and how it all came together.
“Please boo us. To be honest, that was so cool for us because we came there that day expecting to just do a promo,” Top Dolla said via Fightful. “Then, they were like, ‘we have this idea of y’all doing a rap and getting interrupted.’ That was on the spot that day. In rehearsal, we didn’t even have anything prepared. They just put the beat on and I just freestyled for a minute and a half. They were thinking I wrote this out, ‘this is what I’m going to say,’ but I really freestyled for a minute and a half and they were like, ‘cool.'”
At the time, the decision to have Wyatt and his Uncle Howdy squash Hit Row was fun, as the crowd was booing them hard and not in a “playing along with the gimmick” sort of way. Unfortunately, not only has Hit Row's push halted since, but Wyatt's only appearance at WrestleMania 39 came at the merch tables, as his match was scrapped without much fanfare. Hindsight being what it is, one has to wonder if WWE got this one wrong.
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