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Karrion Kross On How He’d Compare His Two NXT Title Wins, Potential Challengers He’d Like To Face

April 20, 2021 | Posted by Blake Lovell
Karrion Kross NXT Killer Kross Image Credit: WWE

In a recent interview with PWInsider, Karrion Kross discussed how he’d compare his two NXT title wins, potential challengers he’d like to face, and much more. Here are some of the highlights:

Karrion Kross on how he would compare his NXT title wins over Finn Balor and Keith Lee: “I could definitely say that working with Finn Balor was the … That’s a dream case scenario that anyone should want to have, being able to work with someone that many years deep in the business. Who’s worked everywhere all over the world, success has followed him everywhere he’s gone. His wrestling IQ is completely off the charts. I was really pleasantly surprised to meet somebody I didn’t have initially a very strong rapport with, just because we were professional acquaintances, that we thought very much alike. We knew what people wanted to see out of that match. And we synced really well in terms of creating that emotional response, listening that from the live crowd and for people through television. It was awesome. I really actually felt like I was back to myself that night when I was in the ring.

“It’s hard for me to still put into words. I just felt very organic, very natural. The things I knew how to do, the person I knew I was as a performer, I felt like was alive and well that night. That probably had to do with just getting even farther away from being injured, but I was training like a maniac, even more so than usual for that match. I spent a lot of time on the mats, in the ring, I was doing a lot of judo, a lot of catch wrestling. Just putting my body through a lot of different types of impact scenarios so I could just really completely get through and get by any subconscious lag that I had from being injured. In relation to the Keith Lee match, it’s just two different styles of performers, two different chemistries. And I think people probably will agree with me that this was the far greater performance than that match, for a variety of reasons.”

On new challengers he’d like to face in NXT: “I think guys like Austin Theory, Pete Dunne, Johnny Gargano, maybe even Tommaso Ciampa one more time. There’s so many people that come to mind. Obviously WALTER and I, at some point in the future, will have to meet. I try to keep my ear low to the ground and listen to what people are interested in seeing. I think that’s important to do in my profession. I’m not somebody who turns a blind eye to that. I know that there’s a lot of main roster appeal, I also pay attention to that as well. But I think there’s a lot of bangers left on NXT, especially with the guys that are in the PC right now that nobody has seen. WWE has a whole secret roster of people that are going to blow everybody away. I’m very excited to be there for that as well, whenever they decide to pull the trigger on that. And it’ll just be a matter of time so to speak, pun intended I guess.”

On balancing his larger-than-life character persona with a reality-based athlete approach in NXT: “I feel like there is a seesaw philosophy within the balance of those two things. Depending on where we’re at in the show, how it’s being written, who the opponent is, and what’s currently going on with both characters. I feel like it’s not necessarily one lane, it’s not necessarily a lane that we absolutely have to be married to. And that is by design. I would say, in my opinion, is Scarlett is more of the supernatural figure out of the duo and that Karrion is someone that feeds off of that supernatural energy, uses it and is able to harness it. She feeds off of the violence that he creates as an energy source. They’re like two bad spirits that entered the room, looking to create carnage, and they both feed off of it in their own separate ways. That’s how I’ve always observed it and that’s sort of the way that we tried to tell that story without actually spelling it out within that direct verbiage.

article topics :

Karrion Kross, NXT, Blake Lovell