Top Dolla discusses being released from WWE.
One year ago, Top Dolla and his fellow Hit Row members were among the WWE superstars who were released with budget cuts cited. Just one month before, Hit Row was brought up from NXT to SmackDown in the 2021 WWE Draft. The sudden changes left Top Dolla feeling like he had wasted his time, as he recalled during a recent appearance on Out of Character with Ryan Satin.
“Disappointment, shame,” Top Dolla said when asked how it felt being released suddenly. “I’d worked to get to that point, and being the fastest call-up ever in NXT history to then be released a month later… I honestly didn’t think this would happen. I had no assurances that I would be back in WWE again. So I felt like the two years that I had spent in NXT to get to that point was just a waste of my time because I was gonna have to go do something else now.”
Top Dolla later reunited with his fellow Hit Row teammate Ashante “Thee” Adonis for a couple matches on the indies. Meanwhile, a regime change was taking place in WWE as Vince McMahon retired and Triple H stepped up as Head of Creative. Luckily, Top Dolla maintained contact with Triple H until he got the call to return.
“What ended up happening, which was a blessing, was the fact that I always stayed in contact with Hunter. We didn’t talk wrestling all the time. We just talked every once a while about random things. When he obviously got back in charge, I saw him bring Dakota and IYO back, and I was like, ‘Oh, okay, all right, cool.’ So he’s bringing people back. I was like, ‘Maybe he’ll bring us back.’ But I don’t know how he feels. I don’t know what he’s trying to accomplish. I don’t know what he’s doing. Then like, two days later, he calls me and I’m like, ‘Oh, okay, yeah, let’s do it. I’m ready. Let’s rock.’”
Top Dolla returned to WWE alongside Adonis and B-Fab on the August 12 episode of SmackDown and have since feuded with Maximum Male Models and Legado del Fantasma.
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