Top Dolla Reveals Paul Heyman’s Supportive Stand During His WWE Tenure

Top Dolla faced his second WWE contract release last year. However, he has embraced the situation with resilience, staying engaged in the professional wrestling scene while exploring new opportunities. With that said, he revealed how Paul Heyman stood up for him in WWE.

While speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Top Dolla shared how Paul Heyman supported him in WWE. Heyman emphasized the authenticity of Hit Row’s hip-hop style, contrasting it with other wrestlers’ rap performances. Heyman believed their approach added a unique realism to their characters.

”The one good thing is that Paul Heyman used to stand up for me a lot and Paul Heyman would say, ‘They can’t see the difference between what, like, John Cena and Max Caster and what you’re doing.’ He said, ‘Theirs is like, not comedy, but, kayfabe rap. It’s rap within the wrestling realm. Yours is like actual, livable, breathable hip-hop’ and he said, ‘Because of that, it makes it more real. So if you’re not into that, you can’t understand it.’ So did they want me to not do it? No, they had no problem with me doing it. They just wasn’t gonna put ‘em on TV. There’s so many times Paul Heyman would text me, ‘Man, this should be how we start the show tonight.’ I would send him my video I’m doing, I sent him one I did for the Christmas show. He was like, ‘This should start the show tonight…’ Sent him so many different ones that we did and mind you, I never get my flowers, Hit Row never gets our flowers.”

Despite Heyman’s support, Hit Row often didn’t receive recognition for their contributions, such as being featured in high-profile segments or matches. Although their videos received praise from Heyman and others, they were frequently left out of WWE programming, despite initially being considered for inclusion.

‘‘When L.A. Knight had that 2 million-view video on YouTube in 24 hours, from the Madison Square Garden dark show, we were in the segment with him. No one ever gave us our flowers for that. I don’t know how many times that happened on WWE. Not just with L.A. Knight but just on WWE YouTube since, but we never got flowers for that. The only match that was promoted for the Christmas show — which is one of the highest-watched shows in SmackDown history and I think the highest-watched pre-taped show in WWE history — the only promoted match for that was Usos versus Hit Row, for the Tag Team Titles. We never got our flowers for that.”

”But Paul Heyman would always show me love and like, I would send him my videos and he would love them, and I would send other people my videos and they would love them. But they just would never put them on TV and then sometimes, I would make videos, we would make videos, Hit Row, and we would send it to the creative team and they would be like, ‘This is great! We’re gonna try to put this on the show!’ And then something would happen. Don’t know who, don’t know why, but it just wouldn’t be a part of the show.”

Top Dolla is now working in various companies including TNA Wrestling, which came about in an interesting way. Nevertheless, Dolla will forever respect Paul Heyman for standing up for him and that is all that matters.

Do you feel Paul Heyman always stood up for the right talent in WWE? Let us know in the comments section below!