WWE Stars Detail How Contacting Triple H Led To 2022 Return
Several former WWE stars came back to the company in 2022 thanks to Triple H taking over and one group detailed how their comeback happened.
In November 2021, WWE decided to release the Hit Row group consisting of Isiah “Swerve” Scott, Top Dolla, Ashante “Thee” Adonis and B-Fab. While Swerve would go on to AEW using the Swerve Strickland name, the other three members of Hit Row did not sign with another company on a full-time basis.
Paul “Triple H” Levesque took over as WWE’s Chief Content Officer in July 2022 when Vince McMahon “retired” due to numerous hush-money payments. While Vince would come back to WWE this past January as the Executive Chairman, Triple H has remained in control of the WWE creative team…for the most part.
Since Triple H took over running WWE’s creative team, he also re-hired several former stars that were released when McMahon was calling the shots. When Dakota Kai re-signed with WWE for her return at SummerSlam with a returning Bayley and IYO SKY (former Io Shirai) finally got her main roster call-up as part of Damage CTRL, Hit Row took notice.
As Ashante “Thee” Adonis told Wrassle Rap recently, he reached out to Triple H after seeing the girls come back at SummerSlam.
“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.’ 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.'”
The big man of the group, Top Dolla, also revealed that he maintained contact with Triple H while the group was out of WWE.
“Me and Hunter never stopped talking, even after we got released. 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.”
Hit Row made their return on the August 12, 2022 edition of Smackdown and they have been part of the blue brand ever since.
Despite their 2022 comeback, Hit Row has not been featured that much on Smackdown with Top Dolla & Adonis last wrestling as a team on Smackdown on February 10th when they lost a short match to Drew McIntyre & Sheamus. Perhaps the upcoming WWE Draft will lead to more of a spotlight for Hit Row.