Corey Graves welcomed Isaiah “Swerve” Scott as his guest on a recent episode of “After The Bell.” Scott talked about the formation of Hit Row and his rise in NXT, among other topics.
Here are some highlights:
Isaiah Scott talking about the formation of Hit Row:
“Honestly, the way it came about was very simple. It wasn’t a long, constructed idea. There was Top Dolla, he was A.J.Francis at the time, Ashanti “Thee” Adonis, and B-Fab, Briana Brandy, they were forming something called The Hitmakers as their own trios group. They were together about eight months actually, and they were doing a lot of the in house shows together. It was a project they were feeling out. Ashanti was still doing 205 Live and other things. A.J. Francis was going off to do WWE Treasures as well, so scheduling wise, it was hard to get them to come together at the same time. I was transitioning from cruiserweight division, doing cruiserweight stuff, feuding with Santos Escobar, and I was going into my own thing. I was trying to do something different and unique myself. I was kind of done with my look, and a lot of where my mannerisms and character were going. I was going through a transition as well. I don’t think the volume was turned up high enough. I was like, let me really dive into it. If I’m going to commit to something, I’m going to dive into it all the way, and go into a different way that nobody else looks like, not just in the WWE Universe, but anywhere in wrestling. I wanted to go somewhere that, ok, this guy is standing out doing something completely unique. After one of the NXT TV shows, HHH approached me with The Hitmakers idea. He said he wanted to put them together. He said there was a lot they can learn from me with my 12 years of wrestling experience, TV, and all that stuff. I can guide them in a way, and they can bring a different flavor and add a lot of muscle, and a lot of impact to where I was transitioning. It was like, ok, this is a perfect storm. It just so happens that we all just happened to be music artists. It was like, wow, how often do you get musicians that actually compete at a high level in the ring together at one time. It was a perfect storm. We played around with names. A.J., before he came to WWE, was doing a faction called The Row out on the independents. It was pretty cool, like a Death Row spinoff type thing. We were like, ‘What if we took that type of hard grittiness, a little in your face, rugged, that unscripted filter, and we brought it here. You’re doing something that’s very different and unique. We can put your spin on it, and the fact that I’ve been on NXT and TV for two years, we got all the legitimacy right there.” We formed it together. We started throwing ideas. Everybody was agreeing, which is very rare that you get four people to agree. Even in music too, it’s hard to get four people on the same page and agree on everything.”
Scott said that HHH is giving them a lot of creative freedom to make them feel authentic:
“I credit it to HHH literally telling everybody, ‘Let off of them. Let them go. Give them the time. Give them the subject and let them go.’ That’s what that was, even on live TV. There was some skepticism about sending us out there to do it live for the first time as well. One thing that helped was the fact that I have been here for two years in the WWE system. I built up the equity that, ‘Ok, we trust him with this. We know he’s going to play ball. We know he can perform.’ That’s one thing, but the other thing is the fact that this is our culture, and they don’t want to speak for our culture. We know how to speak for our culture. We know how to speak. They can’t tell us, ‘Ok, put emphasis on this slang term.’ They were like, ‘We can’t do that. In order for us to feel authentic, we have to let them be authentic.’ They hear how we talk when we’re amongst each other, when we hang out the night before and come up with ideas and stuff. The same we talk there is the same way we talk on TV, and they don’t want to have their hands on that. They just want us to make sure we are not throwing out anything that is too explicit. Some of these things are going over a lot of people’s heads. What does that actually mean? That’s the cool thing because this crowd doesn’t get that, but there are people out there that listen to our music that tell us that they do get that. That’s who we are tapping into that nobody else on the show can do. It’s very rare that anybody on all the brands can do that, tap into this new 2021 hip hop culture. It’s very rare.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit After The Bell with Corey Graves with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
