Kemo
07-12-2022, 01:01 AM
During a recent discussion with Steve Fall for NBC Sports Boston, Killer Kross talked about his experience being in the NXT locker room during the period where NXT and AEW went head to head.
Killer Kross, as Karrion Kross, made his NXT debut in April of 2020 with Scarlett Bordeaux by his side. Later that year, at NXT TakeOver: XXX in August, he defeated Keith Lee to win the NXT Championship for the first time. The following day, WWE announced that Kross had suffered a separated shoulder during the match, and on the next episode of NXT, he vacated the title.
Kross would return in December 2020 by attacking Damian Priest. In April, Kross would defeat Finn Balor at NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver to win the NXT Championship for the second time. Kross only took one loss in NXT, and that was when he lost the NXT Championship to Samoa Joe at NXT TakeOver 36 before moving up to Raw.
WWE’s NXT and AEW’s Dynamite went head to head in the ‘Wednesday Night Wars’ from October 2, 2019, to April 7, 2021. They were both live on air at the same time, on different stations, competing for Nielsen ratings each week. Most weeks, AEW would win the battle for rankings. On April 13, 2021, NXT moved to Tuesday nights, ending the Wednesday Night Wars. During this time, Kross had 14 matches under the NXT banner.
Killer Kross spoke with SEScoops correspondent Steve Fall for NBC Sports Boston prior to competing on the Ric Flair’s Last Match pay-per-view. Kross spoke about how the locker room viewed the ‘Wednesday Night Wars’ and his perception of the discourse.
When Kross was asked if there were any feelings of being in competition with AEW between NXT Superstars, he initially responded:
“If there was little pockets of people that really thought that or felt that way, I wasn’t really engaging with them.”
When Steve Fall asked if that feeling of competition truly existed, Kross had more to say.
The former two-time NXT Champion said, “Probably. I don’t think anyone would’ve come to me with that though. The reason being is I’m pretty even keel. My focus is always on producing the best of the time that’s given to me for the show. So, to give an example, I was just most interested in being as entertaining as possible with the time that was given in the show, in the vignettes, and stuff like that. I would get with teams of people and I would just focus on that.
I do know that there are some people who focus way too much on what other people are being paid, and their quartelys, and what the demographics are, and stuff like that. At the end of the day, I hate to say it, it’s true though, as a wrestler, you can only be accountable for so much. So, if you’re going to concern yourself with details that are completely out of your control, you’re not going to enjoy this anymore. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people drive themselves insane.
It’s like, ‘You don’t write your own stuff. You do what you’re told, you only had so many options for music; you only had so many options for your entrance. You don’t control who’s going over in your matches.’ The way people are reacting to the overall arch of this has very little to do with you and you’re stressing yourself out like you’re the chairman of the company. It’s like, if you just focus your energy on the things that you can control vs the things that you can’t, I think your work will come off better. That energy will be more enthusiastic, it’ll be better there.
I just see people dragging themselves over things that– they’re burning their own energy off in the wrong direction that’s not gonna provide a healthy return. That’s just always been something that’s been clear to me even before I got into wrestling. Just being careful what direction you’re putting your energy to. You always wanna make sure if you put your energy into something you get a healthy return. That doesn’t necessarily mean monetarily. Just means, do you feel good doing this? Are you gonna feel good about it afterward? If not, why are you doing it? If you can’t answer that question, don’t do it.”
Killer Kross, as Karrion Kross, made his NXT debut in April of 2020 with Scarlett Bordeaux by his side. Later that year, at NXT TakeOver: XXX in August, he defeated Keith Lee to win the NXT Championship for the first time. The following day, WWE announced that Kross had suffered a separated shoulder during the match, and on the next episode of NXT, he vacated the title.
Kross would return in December 2020 by attacking Damian Priest. In April, Kross would defeat Finn Balor at NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver to win the NXT Championship for the second time. Kross only took one loss in NXT, and that was when he lost the NXT Championship to Samoa Joe at NXT TakeOver 36 before moving up to Raw.
WWE’s NXT and AEW’s Dynamite went head to head in the ‘Wednesday Night Wars’ from October 2, 2019, to April 7, 2021. They were both live on air at the same time, on different stations, competing for Nielsen ratings each week. Most weeks, AEW would win the battle for rankings. On April 13, 2021, NXT moved to Tuesday nights, ending the Wednesday Night Wars. During this time, Kross had 14 matches under the NXT banner.
Killer Kross spoke with SEScoops correspondent Steve Fall for NBC Sports Boston prior to competing on the Ric Flair’s Last Match pay-per-view. Kross spoke about how the locker room viewed the ‘Wednesday Night Wars’ and his perception of the discourse.
When Kross was asked if there were any feelings of being in competition with AEW between NXT Superstars, he initially responded:
“If there was little pockets of people that really thought that or felt that way, I wasn’t really engaging with them.”
When Steve Fall asked if that feeling of competition truly existed, Kross had more to say.
The former two-time NXT Champion said, “Probably. I don’t think anyone would’ve come to me with that though. The reason being is I’m pretty even keel. My focus is always on producing the best of the time that’s given to me for the show. So, to give an example, I was just most interested in being as entertaining as possible with the time that was given in the show, in the vignettes, and stuff like that. I would get with teams of people and I would just focus on that.
I do know that there are some people who focus way too much on what other people are being paid, and their quartelys, and what the demographics are, and stuff like that. At the end of the day, I hate to say it, it’s true though, as a wrestler, you can only be accountable for so much. So, if you’re going to concern yourself with details that are completely out of your control, you’re not going to enjoy this anymore. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people drive themselves insane.
It’s like, ‘You don’t write your own stuff. You do what you’re told, you only had so many options for music; you only had so many options for your entrance. You don’t control who’s going over in your matches.’ The way people are reacting to the overall arch of this has very little to do with you and you’re stressing yourself out like you’re the chairman of the company. It’s like, if you just focus your energy on the things that you can control vs the things that you can’t, I think your work will come off better. That energy will be more enthusiastic, it’ll be better there.
I just see people dragging themselves over things that– they’re burning their own energy off in the wrong direction that’s not gonna provide a healthy return. That’s just always been something that’s been clear to me even before I got into wrestling. Just being careful what direction you’re putting your energy to. You always wanna make sure if you put your energy into something you get a healthy return. That doesn’t necessarily mean monetarily. Just means, do you feel good doing this? Are you gonna feel good about it afterward? If not, why are you doing it? If you can’t answer that question, don’t do it.”