Karrion Kross never wanted to leave WWE.
He left Impact on bad terms to pursue a chance to wrestle for the promotion, wrestled exactly one match in MLW before being offered his return contract, and fully embraced everything that comes with being a WWE superstar, from moving to Orlando to join NXT to forgo his normally “Killer” first name in favor of something that wouldn't offend moms in a Walmart while buying their child a new action figure.
And yet, after being booked like a certified powerhouse on the black and gold brand, effectively serving as the final project of the Paul “Triple H” era of NXT, Kross had it all taken away when Vince McMahon went over his son-in-law's head to elevate his champion onto RAW to wrestle some 50-50 matches against the likes of Jeff Hardy and Keith Lee before his big-time, star-making championship bout against Samoa Joe. After dropping the strap to Joe, Kross was elevated to the main roster, and his gimmick was fully changed, with Scarlett nixed and his bruising appearance hidden under the armor of a gladiator.
When news broke that Kross was being released from the company due to “budget cuts,” many looked at the decision as an act of mercy, as basically, no performer could get the gladiator gimmick Mr. McMahon seemingly developed one night while watching Showtime. But by losing his spot in the WWE Universe, Kross was left with one very pressing question he had 90 days to answer: where would he wrestle next?
Would Kross sign a new, long-term deal with a company like New Japan, AEW, NJPW, or even Impact? Or would he go full-on ronin and travel the indie world with no home promotion in the hope of building himself up for a bigger opportunity down the line?
Fortunately for Kross, he bet on himself and is now in the midst of a career resurgence the likes of which even he couldn't have seen coming when he was crushing it in NXT, all thanks to Triple H's new promotion and his spot of entanglements when the opportunity came calling.
Karrion Kross is reveling in his new opportunities in the WWE Universe.
Taking part in
I feel very good about it. When I was leaving NXT the first time and coming to the main roster, my goal was to compete against Roman Reigns, and I was very… I want to be very careful about how I talk about that publicly because sometimes when you say what you wanna do publicly, it will never happen. People would ask me, ‘Do you want to wrestle Goldberg?' ‘Do you want to wrestle Brock Lesnar?' ‘Do you want to wrestle Bray Wyatt, Drew McIntyre, Randy Orton?' Yes, across the boards. But I would never, ever talk about Roman Reigns because I didn’t want him to know I was coming. So I knew, at the time, I thought I would naturally just get there. So this time, coming back, immediately going towards my original goal of competing against him, I feel very, very good about this. This is exactly right where I wanna be, right here, right now. There’s a couple people in front of him that I gotta take out, and it’s exactly what I plan on doing.
I have a lot of respect for Drew McIntyre. I respect what he has been through, what he has accomplished, and I think that he is the perfect person to destroy on television to set the tone for what I’m about to do in the immediate future. It’s nothing personal, at all, and he is just in the way, and not for long. He won’t be for very long, and that’s the politest way I can put that.
Ominous, menacing, and a tad confusing – considering McIntyre's brutal takedown of Kross for not understanding that hourglasses don't tick, it's hard to expect anything less from Kross at this stage of the game. But hey, WWE didn't re-hire Kross just to wax poetic, they hired him to wrestle, and so far, the results have been received positively.
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