Killer Kross Recalls Being Told He Would Be Given Bad Ideas In WWE To Knock Him Back

Killer Kross had a famously bad call-up to the main roster, and he says he was told beforehand that he would be given bad creative in order to hurt his standing. After losing his first match on Raw to Jeff Hardy in July of 2021, Kross made his official debut as a member of the main roster a month later with a gladiator mask and outfit, which did not go over well to say the least.

Kross had recalled on D-Von Dudley’s YouTube channel how Vince McMahon came up with the idea and than later denied it. Later in the video, he spoke about how he ended up caught between the creative visions of Vince McMahon and Triple H. He recalled how he was told beforehand that he would be given bad creative in order to hurt his confidence in order to sign him for less money, which came true. You can see highlights below:

On Being Caught Between McMahon & Triple H:

“We had people that have been in the business for 30, 40 plus years [that] pulled us aside and said, ‘Yo, listen. We’re telling you this in confidence; your equity coming into main roster is probably going to make Vince very uncomfortable, because he has to resign you to a main roster deal. So be prepared for him to come up with some really bad ideas to knock you back a bit, to make you insecure and to hurt your confidence so he can sign you for something much lower.'”

“Because the way Hunter had us built an NXT, people online were fantasy booking an NXT Champion against Bobby Lashley and against Roman Reigns. And all three of us at the time had managers. Scarlet was my manager. Bobby had MVP, and Roman had Paul. And I remember people writers at NXT coming to us saying, ‘Look at this.’ He goes, ‘You know how hard it’s been to get people to look at NXT like an equal to the main roster stuff?’ And at the time, I was like so honored that we were able to pull that off together as an act.”

On the Prediction Proving True:

“I don’t think the boss liked [his equity]. And I think that’s where a lot of the silliness came from. And sure enough, as soon as things got weird with the costume ideas and all that stuff, they offered me a new contract at my lowest point. And I said, ‘Oh, damn. They were right.’ And I’ve never said that before, but so much time has gone by, I don’t even think it matters anymore.

“But it’s about — you know, they obviously want to make the highest profit margin. And sometimes giving you the money that you could honestly draw; you could be as a return on investment. They already have people in a high figure bracket. They don’t want to allocate any more of that money to you. Even if you can pull it, they don’t want to because they have their seven main characters they’re running with and everyone else is a 50/50 feeder roster. Whether you’re over or not, they might not want you to be in the top seven people. You know, it’s that’s the way it felt at least.”

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