Former WWE Star Describes Being Scolded by Vince McMahon Backstage

AEW's Swerve Strickland was a recent guest on Talk Is Jericho and discussed his time in WWE leading up to his release late last year. Swerve, AJ Francis, B-Fab and Ashante "Thee" Adonis formed the wildly popular faction Hit Row while the four were in NXT last year. They were called up to the SmackDown roster in October but only got to wrestle once before B-Fab was suddenly released by the company. Within weeks the other three members are all gone as well

Swerve recalled the day Fab was let go and how the trouble started when the group realized her flight for that week's SmackDown hadn't been aranged. WWE officials, including Vince McMahon, pulled the group aside when they arrived and scolded them for asking about travel arrangements. 

"We were like, 'wait, what's going on?' So, AJ called to make sure everything with the flight info was good. They said 'no, everything is good, she's not needed this week.' Then on the flight, literally mid-flight coming down, your phone starts buzzing and everything. We see that she's released along with a bunch of other releases, and all that stuff. We were just like, 'oh, what?' Especially as a female that can talk with the guys in the group, this is our Nicki Minaj right here. That kind of put a dampener on a lot of things," Strickland said (h/t Wrestling Inc.)

"AJ apparently him calling and asking about flight information for Briana was like a no, no, and stuff. So, we had a talk with Vince, and Prichard, and Laurinaitis like in the hallway of the arena," he added. "It was like a little bit of a scold session. But, at the end, it turned into being like, 'oh, don't worry, we have a lot of fun stuff,' and Vince starts laughing.

Strickland arrived in AEW at the Revolution pay-per-view in March. On top of competing in AEW he has popped up in promotions like NJPW Strong, MLW, Ring of Honor, Revolver, Warrior Wrestling and DEFY. His latest televised match was on the April 27 episode of AEW Rampage, coming up short against Darby Allin in a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation Cup tournament. 

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