33-year-old star clears the air on real-life heat with Michael Cole on WWE SmackDown
Michael Cole has been with WWE for decades and is beloved by fans over the past few years for his outstanding skills on the commentary desk. Recently, a former star cleared the air on having real-life heat with the SmackDown commentator, who was constantly taunted by Cole during matches.
Last year, Top Dolla of Hit Row had a horrendous botch during an episode of Friday Night SmackDown, which got him the name of 'Flop Dolla' from the WWE Universe. Moreover, Michael Cole started using the term during Hit Row's matches and heavily criticized the star.
The WWE Universe believed that the two had real-life heat and Cole was burying the star on purpose. Speaking on Muscle Man Malcolm, AJ Francis addressed these theories and revealed that the two were working the crowd up as they were planning a storyline and an eventual match:
"I was the one telling [Michael] Cole to keep saying it. I love Cole, Cole loves me. The reason Cole did everything that he does is because we were working together. We're trying to get a match. I would sit at the desk at SmackDown while he's going over whatever he's going over for the show and we would have conversations about how we can try to set this up like what would we do? What the finish would be? Who else could we get involved? We had these conversations in-depth." (From 13:58 to 14: 37)
Top Dolla says Pat McAfee and Michael Cole were supposed to team up and face Hit Row in WWE
Hit Row had an interesting start during their second run with WWE under Triple H's regime. The faction was winning and got featured on weekly television without Swerve Scott's presence.
Top Dolla once revealed that there were plans to face Michael Cole in a tag team match for all the comments he made after Dolla's botch incident on WWE SmackDown:
"Me and Cole wanted a match at a PLE. We even had it planned out. I throw him around for 5 minutes, I get cocky and get distracted by (insert any wrestler here) & he beats me with a small package 😂," he posted.
He later added another tweet saying Pat McAfee was supposed to team up with Cole.
Sadly, the match never happened, and Dolla was released from the promotion.
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If you use quotes from this article, please credit Muscle Man Malcolm and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription.