Since being released from the WWE at the end of 2021, Swerve Scott is having a moment.

He's wrestled across multiple promotions, won the DEFY Tag Team Championship improbably teamed up with Christopher Daniels, and… oh yeah, took the AEW Tag Team Championship belts off of the Young Bucks alongside his fellow former NXT standout Keith Lee at Fyter Fest Night 1, even if they didn't actually pin a Jackson, Nick or Matt, for the belt.

In addition to being one of the most in-demand performers on the independent wrestling scene, with bookings everywhere from Progress to Jonathan Gresham's Terminus, NJPW, MLW, Warrior, Revolver, and DEFY, Strickland is getting segments dedicated to celebrating his win on Dynamite featuring Kevin Gates, a big-time feud with a Team Taz that has elevated both duos considerably, and is still landing the occasional singles match for good measure too, like his forthcoming 2-on-1 match with Tony Nese and “Smart” Mark Sterling at Fight for the Fallen.

But recall, if you will, that Strickland wasn't a solo performer during his extended tenure in NXT and cup of coffee in WWE. No, his greatest success came as part of a quartet, where he performed alongside three other wrestlers: Ashante Adonis, Top Dolla, and B-Fab, collectively known as Hit Row. With Swerve killing it both in AEW and in the indies, what are his former friend up to outside of WWE?

Hit Row is still finding its footing outside of the WWE Universe.

In his first interview post-WWE with the Jobbing Out podcast, AJ Francis, WWE's Top Dolla, who is now known on the indies as Franc, declared that Hit Row would attempt to stick it out on the indies whenever possible, as he detailed in the following quote as detailed by Post Wrestling.

Absolutely [there is a plan to collaborate with Hit Row members outside of WWE]. I mean we have all — the funny thing is the reason why Hit Row worked so well is because you got four people who have completely different personalities as well as, you know, wrestling styles and characters coming together and it all felt really symbiotic between all of us. It was never hard for us to seem like we connected because we just connected and the thing is now, everybody kind of has their own plans but those plans entail all of us still working together every chance that we get an opportunity to. But we all have different ideas of what we wanna do next and we all have different ideas of where would be the best place for us to go.

So, you know, it’s going to be an opportunity for everybody because anybody with eyes that watched what we did on television knows that we can bring a lot to any company that we go to, you know what I’m saying? So, we have all different ideas but the plan right now is for us to, you know, do everything we can together but still not be afraid to do our own thing which is what we were already doing to be honest.

When we would do everything within our crew, because even if you look at [Isaiah] Swerve [Scott’s North American] title reign, the focal point was on Swerve but we were all — the point was for us to make sure that he got the best out of that-that he could and same thing when we came up to the main roster and they wanted to see me work as the solo guy. We all came together and recognized the potential of that and how well it could work, depending on where we ended up taking the stories that we did because at the end of the day, none of us came to WWE all together. We joined together when we got there so, to now have the opportunity to still work together but be our own people, I mean it’s exactly what we were looking for from the beginning.

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That sentiment is honestly quite sweet; it's clear Hit Row, now known as the “The HitMakerZ” were friends both in and out of the ring, and their commitment to keeping an act that frankly was very over with the fans alive makes a ton of sense, especially since the trio not named Swerve weren't exactly established performers before they made their way to the WWE.

And yet, in reality, Strickland's success has been ever so slightly detrimental to the rest of the team, as many a booker looking to bring the former Hit Row experience to their promotion would prefer to book the full quartet instead of just the trio who are no longer on weekly television. Since their non-compete clause ended back in February, Francis and Ashante Adonis, who now goes by Tehuti Miles, have wrestled in two matches, once for MCW in March near the former's college home, the University of Maryland – Francis was a nose tackle who played in the NFL from 2013-18 – and again at GCW's For the Culture in April broadcast from Dallas, where the duo lost to Shane Taylor Promotions.

Though Swerve was at the team's first show, which you can watch below, he hasn't wrestled an official match with his former friends up to this point, and it doesn't look like he has any matches booked with them in the not-too-distant-future either.

A bit of a bummer? You bet, but hey, don't get too upset, wrestling fans – Francis just booked a championship match versus Trini Dan at All Caribbean Wrestling, and who knows, maybe this will be the match that relaunches the unit into regular in-ring action, either with Swerve Scott and as trio independent of their championship-winning compadre?