Appearing on Busted Open Radio following his return to WWE, AJ “Top Dolla” Francis of Hit Row said that he kept in touch with Triple H ever since he was released last November and HHH would keep tabs on the group while they were working the indies.

Francis said that nearly two weeks ago, Levesque called him and asked him how fast they can make it back and after a Zoom call between all parties involved, all three had a contract offer, physicals booked, and a creative plan laid down.

“It was a breath of fresh air,” Francis said. “I was down when we got released. Hit Row was hotter than anything in wrestling. Period. I don’t care who you are…get your feelings hurt if you want. When we got released, I feel we had something great and it turned into ashes in my hand,” he continued, adding that getting released made him stop watch wrestling on TV for the first time in his life.

“I went eight months without watching wrestling,” he said.

The former football player also discussed the rumors that he had confrontations with Vince McMahon back in November of last year which played in the group getting released as well.

He said that people say that he’s hard to work with, but he refuted the idea, saying he’s just hard to fool.

“I’m not hard to work with, I’m hard to fool. You can’t tell me something that’s not true and you’re not going to stand on. That’s how I was raised. If that makes me wrong, I’m going to be wrong forever,” Francis said.

While Levesque was not there when Hit Row got released last year, Francis did mention that HHH told him he’s not interested in what happened with Vince and told him that WWE is now a new place and they have a clean slate.