"Nobody can write for us" - Triple H believed former stars had the most unique faction in WWE (Exclusive)
Triple H has had a massive influence in shaping the modern era of professional wrestling as many of the current top talents have come through from the NXT system.
AJ Francis, fka Top Dolla, appeared on Sportskeeda Wrestling's UnSKripted, where he opened up on the best advice he received from The Game.
Top Dolla had a successful spell in NXT in the Hit Row faction alongside B-Fab, Ashante "Thee" Adonis, and Isaiah "Swerve" Scott, and the former WWE star recalled the group's history together before arriving in Vince McMahon's company.
Triple H was aware of AJ Francis' work backstage towards improving his promo skills. As a result, he backed the superstar's ability to perform at a higher level:
"The best advice Triple H gave me when we were in NXT was, honestly, it wasn't even advice; it was confidence because he had seen everything I had done promo-wise behind the scenes," revealed Top Dolla. "He knew I had come up with the idea for, at the time, we were calling it the HitMakerZ, but like I said, it was called the Row before that when I was on the indies, and we changed it to Hit Row." [9:38 - 10:02]
According to AJ Francis, The Cerebral Assassin felt that no other WWE faction could replicate the performances of the former NXT quartet.
Top Dolla also had a message for people who failed to understand the idea behind their alliance:
"He understood everything I had put into it, and he understood how it was completely different from everything else," Francis continued. "So the best advice he gave me was telling me, nobody can write for us. Nobody can do what we do. Nobody can duplicate what we do, which is still true. There are a lot of people that don't understand how much we really did for that group. We were everything in that group." [10:03 - 10:36]
"Triple H helped me a lot with understanding blocking" - AJ Francis
While AJ Francis was no stranger to television before his WWE signing, the former footballer stated that "blocking" in wrestling was entirely different from producing and directing other media forms.
The 31-year-old star mentioned that Triple H played a crucial role in helping him learn how performers need to move during segments and matches:
"Triple H helped me a lot with understanding blocking - wrestling blocking," said Francis. "Like, I had done plays and commercials, and movies and TV shows and analyst work and stuff before I ever got to WWE, but wrestling TV blocking is different than any other kind of television blocking. So, he helped me a lot with that." [10:37 - 11:00]
AJ Francis also spoke about how he got the name "Top Dolla" and revealed an incident regarding WWE scrapping a pitched name due to a similarity to Big E. You can read more on that right here.
Please credit Sportskeeda Wrestling's UnSKripted and embed the YouTube video if you use any quotes from this article.