{"id":103875,"date":"2021-11-06T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2021-11-06T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=103875"},"modified":"2021-11-06T11:17:46","modified_gmt":"2021-11-06T15:17:46","slug":"karrion-kross-wwe-never-understood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/11\/06\/karrion-kross-wwe-never-understood\/","title":{"rendered":"Karrion Kross: The Man WWE Never Understood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Karrion Kross <\/strong>was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/11\/04\/keith-lee-released-wwe\/\" target=\"_self\">released along with several other <strong><em>WWE <\/em><\/strong>talent<\/a> on November 4, putting to an end a troubled tenure on the roster of <strong>Monday Night Raw<\/strong><em>.<\/em> Although he was a dominant force and a 2x champion on the developmental <strong>NXT<\/strong> brand, the powers that be at Raw never quite wrapped their head around Kross, a performer with a distinctive and sometimes polarizing style.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Did WWE Ever Understand Karrion Kross?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Karrion Kross and Scarlett\u2019s warning: WWE NXT, May 13, 2020\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JZtxIhL-G4k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>&#8220;The Tollman&#8221; Moves Toward NXT<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Before WWE, &#8220;The Tollman&#8221; performed in <strong>Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide<\/strong> and its El Rey television project <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt4171176\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Lucha Underground<\/strong><\/a>, <strong>IMPACT Wrestling<\/strong><em>, <\/em>and <strong>Major League Wrestling<\/strong><em>.<\/em> Karrion Kross came to WWE having shed many names behind him: Killer Kross, the aforementioned &#8220;Tollman,&#8221; White Rabbit, and with a simple but effective persona, that of a brooding and enigmatic loner figure on the edge who goes simply berserk in the ring. Upon entering NXT, Kross was accompanied to the ring by real-life fianc\u00e9e <strong>Scarlett Bordeaux.<\/strong> With Bordeaux as his valet, the two were an enigmatic pair whose smoke-wreathed, dark cabaret entrance always caused a stir at the Capitol Wrestling Center. Their act grew to take on Gothic undertones, with Scarlett a priestess figure who selected Kross\u2019s targets using her Tarot cards.<\/p>\n<p>Kross <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/08\/22\/andnew-karrion-kross-wins-the-nxt-championship\/\" target=\"_self\">first attained the NXT Championship<\/a> in August 2020, after defeating <strong>Keith Lee <\/strong>(also released on November 4, 2021) at <em>NXT Takeover 30.<\/em> However, a separated shoulder suffered during the match led Kross to rescind the title four days later. He returned in late 2020. As 2021 dawned, NXT Champion <strong>Finn Balor<\/strong>\u2019s feud with the <strong>Undisputed Era <\/strong>stable was winding down, and his focus was turning to Kross. With Scarlet intrigued by the omens leading to Balor in her cards, he and Kross began to tensely circle each other.<\/p>\n<p>Kross won the title from Balor on May 25 and defended it successfully in a fatal five-way against <strong>Pete Dunne, Kyle O\u2019Reilly, Adam Cole,<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Johnny Gargano<\/strong> on June 13 at <em><strong>NXT TakeOver: In Your House<\/strong>. <\/em>Kross\u2019s in-ring abilities made such a match entirely credible, with his vast array of suplex variations delivered punishingly with theatrical rage. One could easily believe that he could run through four other wrestlers in a blind rage.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95197 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/06\/karrion-kross-scarlett-0.jpg\" alt=\"Karrion Kross Scarlett\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/06\/karrion-kross-scarlett-0.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/06\/karrion-kross-scarlett-0-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Transition Toward the Main Roster<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Kross\u2019s character, always a bruising and blisteringly vitriolic figure, became ever more merciless and anarchic, violently venting and volatile until <strong>Samoa Joe<\/strong> returned to NXT to be an enforcer to general manager <strong>William Regal<\/strong> and deal with Kross\u2019s one-man rebellion. Their feud led to Samoa Joe returning to in-ring action in a match against Kross for the NXT Championship at <strong><em>NXT Takeover 36<\/em><\/strong>, passing the title along to Samoa Joe as he departed for the Raw roster.<\/p>\n<p>Kross came to Raw with a character that he, and audiences, knew well. Catchphrases, like \u201cTick tock,\u201d \u201ctime\u2019s up\u201d everybody pays the toll,\u201d etc, an enigmatic Gothic veneer concealing the kind of aggression that pro wresting fans generally adore in a heel character. Like <strong>\u201cStone Cold\u201d Steve Austin<\/strong>, the Kross character confronted authority with unbridled rage but, like <strong>The Undertaker <\/strong>and <strong>Bray Wyatt<\/strong>, had highly conceptual supernatural undertones. With proper development, he could have been more than palatable to Raw\u2019s audience. He could have been compelling and successful.<\/p>\n<p>For whatever reason, be it creative stagnancy at WWE or internecine strife that eventually saw a rebranding of NXT, Kross\u2019s time on the Raw roster was lackluster from the word, &#8220;go.&#8221; Bordeaux never appeared by his side at Raw, which meant goodbye to their customary entrance in which she lip-synced to his entrance theme, dressed in black latex or velvet, and bedecked in fog. Kross was given a clunky mask that rendered internet ridicule, a gladiator gimmick, and a series of meaningless, short matches beginning with a loss to <strong>Jeff Hardy <\/strong>on his first night.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jeff Hardy vs. Karrion Kross: Raw, July 19, 2021\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3XICjMMqC2A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Karrion Kross &amp; His Doomed WWE Main Roster Odyssey<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>No less than <strong>Mick Foley<\/strong> spoke out more than once online about the ill-treatment of Kross, and it was and remains baffling. Kross\u2019s in-ring style could have made him the heir to <strong>Brock Lesnar<\/strong> or <strong>Goldberg, <\/strong>and he had great potential as a heel or an antihero tweener pitted against Raw babyfaces like <strong>Drew McIntyre <\/strong>or <strong>Big E.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>His fate echoes the wasted potential of another NXT call-up, <strong>Malakai Black<\/strong>. As <strong>Aleister Black,<\/strong> he had a turbulent time as well on Raw. Following a program with <strong>Kevin Owens,<\/strong> Black and wife <strong>Zelina Vega <\/strong>were both released by WWE; upon being rehired some months later, Black was launching into a highly conceptual Gothic story arc and a feud with Big E when he was released yet again, wasting all the creative potential and in-ring talent he could have continued to bring to WWE as its big-name part-time PPV performers like Goldberg and Lesnar continue to age and approach their last outings.<\/p>\n<p>Black, of course, resurfaced in <strong>All Elite Wrestling<\/strong>,\u00a0the first destination that comes to mind for former WWE talent upon beginning their \u201cfuture endeavors\u201d. There\u2019s no telling if Kross will go the same route, but it is clear that WWE simply never understood where he fit on Raw and beyond, despite all that\u00a0 had made him compelling on NXT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Karrion Kross was released along with several other WWE talent on November 4, putting to an end a troubled tenure on the roster of Monday Night Raw. Although he was a dominant force and a 2x champion on the developmental NXT brand, the powers that be at Raw never quite wrapped their head around Kross, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":103909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2192,25,4,5,3],"tags":[124,68,6340,270,2921,214,3093,863],"class_list":["post-103875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wrestling","category-raw","category-wwe","category-nxt","category-wwe-universe","tag-jeff-hardy","tag-johnny-gargano","tag-karrion-kross","tag-keith-lee","tag-killer-kross","tag-samoa-joe","tag-scarlett-bordeaux","tag-william-regal"],"modified_by":"Robbie Sutter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}