AJ Francis On His Reaction To WWE Release, If He’d Up For Return To Company

AJ Francis recently spoke about his reaction to his WWE release and whether he’d be up for a return at some point. Francis, who worked as Top Dolla in WWE, was let go from the company as part of their post-UFC merger release spate. He has been busy in the indies since and spoke about his release, who he still talks to from the company and more in an interview with Wrestling Inc. You can see a few highlights below:

On his reaction to his WWE release: “I let myself be pissed off for 24 hours and then it was time to gameplan. Actually, I get an opportunity now to show, and I’ve already been doing it, that I’m a star. I’m not background. I’m not just another person that happens to be on your roster. I can carry your roster if you give me a microphone and let me go. I am at the point now where I’m hotter than I ever was in WWE and I’m doing it all on my own. The thing about WWE is that they don’t need people with outside connections because they can get them themselves. They can call anybody on earth and say, “We’re WWE. We want to do X with your company. We want to do X with your venue. We want to do X with your person of interest.” But, since my release, I’ve been on ESPN four times, ABC twice, NBC twice, TMZ, the list goes on and on, all from just phone calls, from connections I had before I ever took my first bump. The only [people in wrestling] that’s been on The Pat McAfee Show more than me [are] Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman. And so it’s like I had these connections that I made before I ever started wrestling. Now, when I use them, when I go on The Pat McAfee Show and I talk about TNA, the people in TNA are like, “Oh, thank you so much. I can’t believe it,” because other people are capable of doing that. And I didn’t even go out of my way to get on The Pat McAfee Show. I was there doing other media at Super Bowl Media Row, which a lot of people can’t get into without a company backing them for that, but I can get in there. You know what I’m saying? And then I go do media with FanDuel TV, with SiriusXM, with a bunch of different networks that I’ve worked with in the past. And I saw a bunch of my old teammates, a bunch of my old friends, and I just was walking by Pat’s set and saying, “What’s up?” to him and he was like, “Yo, you should be on the mic.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay, cool.” That’s based off a personal friendship, a personal relationship. People think we first met at NXT [but] that’s just not the case. There’s a lot that I can bring to a lot of companies, and these other companies see that, and that’s why they’re all paying me money.”

On who he still talks to from WWE: “A bunch of people. The Usos, Jimmy and Jey, talk to them. Naomi, luckily, our paths got to cross in TNA a little bit before she went back. Guys like Odyssey Jones, guys like Angelo Dawkins, Montez Ford, I still talk to a bunch of these guys. I have a lot of friends that are still in the locker room. And it’s cool because hanging out outside of wrestling, making friends outside of wrestling is sometimes more fun than the stuff that you got to go through while you’re at work. It’s a good time.”

On being proud of the other Hit Row members: “I’m proud B-Fab is finally getting to show what she can do in the ring. She was in that [Last Chance] Battle Royal [on Raw]. I’m proud that Tehuti is getting an opportunity to actually be on TV and show what he’s capable of. And, for Swerve, [he’s] been doing his own thing for a couple years now. Hopefully, he gets the opportunity to win the world title, but you never know in this business. Hopefully, he does. But, yeah, the cool thing is that, for me, is that Hit Row was my brainchild from my first run on the indies before I got to WWE where it was called The Row. And it was cool because it completely changed Swerve’s character and it gave us opportunities to be on TV. Obviously, we went to SmackDown and that all changed. But I’m grateful that an idea that I had, that I created, was good enough that it really wasn’t changed at all and it was just whatever I got to do with it. Now, then it comes to lack of opportunity towards the end of the run, but I’m not responsible for that part.”

On if he’d still go back to WWE now that things are different there: “Yeah, I still talk to Hunter. My thing is would I go back to WWE if Hunter called me and they had an idea for me that they wanted to do? Yeah, for sure. But I’m at a point now where people actually listen to my ideas. People actually give a f*** what I have to say about my character and how I want it to be played. And I don’t have to beg for creative and the writing staff to listen to my ideas only to be told that I can’t do something and then them give it to somebody else a couple of weeks later. Everything that I do now, I have my hands on. And that’s how it was in NXT. That’s why Hit Row was so successful in NXT. That’s why Hit Row was the fastest call-up in the history of NXT. That’s why, even though we were supposed to be heels, the people were chanting Hit Row during the show and during commercials. It’s because, when we debuted and I cut the promo and I tell the cameraman, “Yo, make sure you shoot us from underneath so it looks like a rap battle,” you see what I’m saying? Had our hands in everything. I had my hands in everything of putting the product out there. That’s why it was so successful. And the reason it wasn’t on SmackDown is because we just became cookie-cutter and we just were doing what we were told to do. You know what I’m saying? And we weren’t actually given an opportunity to show what we can do. It’s like, B-Fab didn’t become a better performer in the last four months. She’s just getting more opportunity. Tehuti didn’t become a better character in the last four months, he’s just getting opportunity. I’m hotter than I ever was on SmackDown because now I have opportunity to go places and do things that I want to do. It’s like, yeah, opportunity is the key”