A.J. Francis, formerly Top Dolla in Hit Row, spoke about his recent release from WWE and an incident that happened at a recent SmackDown taping.
Francis was one of eight main roster performers released last Thursday adding to a list that grew to 80 in 2021.
Francis appeared on Busted Open Radio alongside Tehuti Miles, the former Ashante “Thee” Adonis.
During the conversation, Francis spoke of an incident that occurred at a recent SmackDown taping where an offensive remark was allegedly made over the headset regarding Francis. The performer did not hear comment but stated several producers came up and apologized over the remark: (Transcribed by WrestlingNews.co)
When we were on SmackDown, we did the segment with Sami (Zayn). We were rehearsing the segment. The audio was really loud in the arena. I politely asked, ‘Do you think we can turn down the audio in the arena a little bit just so that the people in the arena, because they were playing music, so that the people in the arena could hear what we were saying and we could get a reaction from it.’ I don’t know what was said, but something was said about me over the headset that was so disrespectful, that three different producers who heard it on the headset came up to me and apologized to me afterwards, even though I didn’t even hear what was said. Clearly something was said that was very wild and disrespectful because they felt the need to apologize to me for something I didn’t even know. If I would have heard it and said anything back, then I’m disgruntled, and I’m aggressive, and I’m the angry black man. It’s unfortunate the way that things shape out, but at the end of the day, I’m not telling nobody to never watch WWE again. I’m going to watch WWE. I’m not sitting here pretending that I’m not. I watch everything. But also, that’s not the end all, be all. That’s not where we have to be, to be successful. We are more than capable of going anywhere in this world and making the same impact.
