Top Dolla and Ashante “Thee” Adonis returning to WWE?
Members of former WWE stable Hit Row may be returning to the company soon.
A new report from PWInsider notes that “Top Dolla” AJ Francis and Ashante “Thee” Adonis are currently scheduled to be at Friday’s SmackDown taping from the PNC Arena in Raleigh, NC.
There’s no word yet on if “B-Fab” Briana Brandy will be brought to SmackDown, and the former Isaiah “Swerve” Scott is now known as AEW World Tag Team Champion Swerve Strickland.
It was noted that there’s been a lot of talk this week about a possible WWE return for Francis. It was then revealed that Adonis is also being brought to SmackDown.
Francis, a rapper and former NFL player, previously hosted the first season of WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures on A&E. The series recently resumed filming but it was indicated that his role has been filled by WWE Hall of Famer Lita.
Hit Row was brought from WWE NXT to the main roster on the October 1, 2021 edition of SmackDown for the WWE Draft. The group didn’t have much direction on SmackDown and B-Fab was soon released on November 4 of that year, reportedly due to budget cuts. Swerve, Francis and Adonis were then released on November 19, along with other budget cuts. The group, minus Swerve, reunited as The HitMakerZ at a MCW indie event this past March.
There’s no word yet on if the former Hit Row members are being brought to SmackDown for a return to the company, or if this is something related to A&E programming.
While I can get behind Triple H getting back names he liked that Vince passed on, but can we also remind him WWE still has more talent on their roster than they can fit into 7 hours plus main event.
Don’t just horde talent to take up space in catering. Maybe not just keep adding people without some storyline intentions? WWE has seemingly gotten better at this lately, but let’s no go back to days where 2/3 of your roster is off tv each week.
Smackdown needs a B-show at this point, tbh. Or at the very least, Main Event should have 4 matches (2 from Raw, 2 from SD) and drastically reduce the amount of time dedicated to recaps.
Maybe it makes sense internationally, but here in the US, you get Main Event through Hulu, which also airs edited versions of Raw and SD. So why do we even need like 20 min. of A-show recaps on Main Event? It’s boring and honestly the key reason I don’t watch the show despite having Hulu…
To be fair, it sometimes seems like we get 20 min. of A-show recaps on the A-shows.