Karrion Kross On Not Burning His Bridge With WWE Following Release, Keeping His Cool

Karrion Kross didn’t go in on WWE after his release last year, and he recently discussed why that wasn’t hard for him and more. Kross is back with the company on Smackdown, and in a new interview he talked about keeping himself and Scarlett keeping their cool after their release in November of 2021 and why he didn’t burn his bridges there. You can check out the highlights below:

On keeping cool during the time after his release: “This is going to sound crazy, but it wasn’t hard, like at all. It wasn’t hard. Our phones and emails blew up literally within the 30 minutes that the information was released on the internet with work. And we were booked out on the day that we were released, we were booked out all the way actually into November of this year. We had all of our bookings. And then we were still getting conventions and different offers from other revenue streams outside of wrestling and stuff like that. So monetarily we knew that we were going to be okay.

“But on the other end of it we were — we didn’t really sit in it and stew in it, but we were devastated that we were released because we thought we were better than that. And I’m not saying that from a pretentious or an egocentric point. We just felt like we had more to offer. There was so many things left undone. We wanted to pay off things that the fans wanted to see. But again, it was this a situation we felt like, ‘Well, they made this decision against our will and it’s out of our control. And we can’t be there, because we’re obviously not wanted there.’ So yeah, it was mixed.”

On his main roster run: “And also, I’ve been on the record to say this before, I was relieved to be finished with what they were having me do. It wasn’t working. I could hear it in live reactions, I could feel it online. I’d run into people at the airports, the gym and restaurants, and coffee shops. And they’d be like, ‘When are they going to put you guys back together and give us what we really wanted?’ And it was just so abundantly clear, like ‘This is an excellent opportunity to just listen to the fans they’re telling you what they want.'”

On not burning his bridges with WWE: “That part was easy for me not to do because I really had — seriously, I had such an incredible time actually being there. I had a wonky three months before we were released, but to be hon4esty with you, I kept in touch with almost everybody once I was out. I grew a bond not only with WWE fans, but like, I grew a bond with people I worked with…

“So I didn’t let a weird falling out. or a weird three months, completely corrupt my vision and experience with the company. Because honestly, it was excellent. And I got the dream run in NXT that some people who have 20-year careers will never get near. They gave me essentially two undefeated streaks, they had me crush everybody completely clean as a heel, and I was only pinned one time in NXT. And then honestly, I know that the main roster run was not what we wanted, but I think I was only maybe pinned twice or three times out of like 12 matches that we did up there. So I know the wins and losses they say don’t matter, but like there was an effort here to put me on course to be successful. And I just never lost sight of that.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Cheap Heat with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.