Since taking his talents to WWE from ECW around the turn of the century, Paul Heyman has only chosen a select few performers to take under his wings and help mentor along their professional wrestling paths.
From his “Paul Heyman Guys” to performers who maybe never had an official on-screen pairing with but still turned to the staple of East Coast wrestling as a mentor, professional wrestling has been shaped considerably by Paul E Dangerously over the past three decades, so much so that he's heading to the WWE Hall of Fame as an active member of the main roster.
Discussing his own relationship with Heyman in a special appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, AJ Francis, aka WWE's Top Dolla, reflected on how the ECW legend helped him to find his voice within his hip-hop-themed character, immediately noticing the difference between what he and, say, Max Caster, were doing from a presentation standpoint.
“The one good thing is that Paul Heyman used to stand up for me a lot. Paul Heyman would say they can't see the difference between what John Cena and Max Caster and what you're doing,” AJ Francis told Chris Van Vliet via Fightful. “He said, ‘Theirs is like, not comedy, but kayfabe rap. It's rap within the wrestling realm. Yours is like actual, liveable, breathable hip hop.' He said because of that it makes it more real. So if you're not into that you can't understand it. Do they not want me to do it? No, they had no problem with me doing it. They just wouldn't go and put them on TV. There's so many times Paul Heyman would text me, ‘This should be how we start the show tonight.' I would send him a video, I sent him one I did for the Christmas show. He was like, ‘This should start the show tonight.' I did it, sent them so many different ones that we did. Mind you, I never get my flowers, Hit Row never gets our flowers.”
Now, for fans who remember when Francis was still Dolla within the WWE Universe, you will recall seeing the former Maryland defensive tackle sharing Hit Row videos on social media ahead of plenty of episodes of SmackDown, even if they were almost never ultimately used during the telecast. This, in Francis' opinion, is no small reason why Hit Row never quite found the success on the main roster that they had in NXT, as he continued to discuss on Insight.
Paul Heyman showed AJ Francis love when Hit Row was overlooked.
Continuing his conversation with Chris Van Vliet about Hit Row and why the faction could never quite find their place on SmackDown, AJ Francis revealed that he would often send his video packages to Paul Heyman, who would give him positive feedback even if WWE opted against airing their segments on TV.
“When LA Knight had that 2 million view video on YouTube in 24 hours from the Madison Square Garden dark show, we were in the segment with him. No one ever gave us our flowers for that. I don't know how many times that happened on WWE, not just with LA Knight, but just on WWE YouTube since, but we never got flowers for that,” AJ Francis noted. “The only match that that was promoted for the Christmas show. That's one of the highest-watched shows in SmackDown history and I think the highest-watched pre-taped show in WWE history. The only promoted match for that was Usos vs. Hit Row for the Tag Team Titles, we never got flowers for that. But Paul Heyman would always show me love. I would send him my videos, and he would love them. I would send other people my videos and they would love them, but they just would never put them on TV. Sometimes I would make videos we would make videos, Hit Row, and we would send it to the creative team. They'd be like this is great. We're gonna try to put this on the show. Then something would happen I don't know who, I don't know why, but it just wouldn't be a part of the show.”
If WWE actually pushed Hit Row, could they have been successful? 100 percent; one of the biggest “What ifs” of the last decade is what the original Hit Row would have looked like on the main roster had the quarter of Dolla, Ashante “Thee” Adonis, B-Fab, and Swerve Strickland had all been allowed to showcase their NXT act on RAW or SmackDown. While that ultimately never happened, it's at least nice to know that the current TNA star found a long-term ally in Paul Heyman, as having someone with that pedigree in your corner can only help business.