WWE: Backstage Reaction to Karrion Kross’ “Shoot” Promo at WrestleMania 41 Post-Show, Seth Rollins on “If You Followed The Food Crumbs, You Could See Partnership With Paul Heyman Coming”, More on NXT April 22, 2025 Viewership, More News

Apr 26, 2025

Backstage Reaction to Karrion Kross’ “Shoot” Promo at WrestleMania 41 Night 2 Post-Show & Current Plans for Kross

As noted before, this past Sunday’s WWE WrestleMania 41 Night 2 post-show featured Karrion Kross delivering a “shoot” promo about him not being booked for a match at WrestleMania 41 and how the advice he recieved from WWE Hall of Famer Bill Goldberg about “being a good soldier” gets you opportunities in WWE has not worked out for him.

WrestleVotes Radio reported that their sources stated that WWE officials currently have big plans to feature Kross more prominently post-WrestleMania season. WWE officials reportedly currently are planning on further exploring Kross’ character on-screen with regular spots on WWE television.

In regards to the backstage reaction to Kross’ promo, Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that Kross has no heat backstage or any heat with WWE management over his promo. Those spoken to reportedly stated that Kross did raise some eyebrows internally within the company. It was reported that Kross’ appearance on the post-show was unscripted but one source spokrn to stated that the segment did require a certain level of approval before airing specifically due to the foul language Kross used.

It was reported that several talent within WWE have since reached out to Kross offering their support and even going as far as to thank him for delivering a promo of that magnitude. Several talent reportedly felt that Kross’ promo had rang true with the wrestling narrative and those beyond it.

Seth Rollins Comments on “If You Followed The Food Crumbs, You Could See Partnership With Paul Heyman Coming”

As noted before, last Saturday’s WWE WrestleMania 41 Night 2 event in Las Vegas, Nevada featured Paul Heyman turning heel on CM Punk and Roman Reigns and aligning himself with Seth Rollins.

A recent episode of the Rich Eisen Show featured Rollins as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Rollins thoughts about the clues to his partnership with Heyman being there for months.

“If you followed the food crumbs, if you look back at the last two months, you could probably figure it out. You could see it. The writing was on the wall. It made perfect sense to me, and it was a partnership waiting to happen. CM Punk is supposedly this guy’s friend, but he’s leveraging his friendship to get a favor, to get what he wants, which is the main event of WrestleMania and have him in his corner. Then, Roman Reigns, they are supposedly thick as thieves, but Roman Reigns left Paul Heyman to get destroyed by his family and never apologized for two seconds. If Roman takes the Wise Man, then Punk is going to eat him alive. If Paul takes the Wise Man, Roman is going to go after Paul Heyman. I was really the only solution and I told Paul Heyman as such. Here we are.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

More on NXT April 22, 2025 Viewership

The April 22nd episode of WWE NXT saw NXT gain a small increase in overall viewership and key demographic ratings.

NXT drew 686,000 viewers and a 0.17 key demographic rating on The CW.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reasons for NXT’s increases this week was due to the large increase from their overall key demographic viewership group, which was up 21.4% compared to last week’s show. Of NXT’s key demographic viewership increase, their younger key demographic viewership group was up 20% compared to last week’s show. This reportedly offset the stiff sports competition from the 2025 NBA Playoffs.

In terms of head-to-head competition, the 2025 NBA Playoffs Game 2 of Memphis Grizzles vs. Oklahoma City Thunder drew 1,919,000 viewers on TNT and 336,000 viewers on truTV, the 2025 NBA Playoffs Game 2 of Milwaukee Bucks vs. Indiana Pacers drew 696,000 viewers on NBA TV, the 2025 NHL Playoffs Game 2 of Ottawa Senators vs. Toronto Maple Leafs drew 603,000 viewers on ESPN and 427,000 viewers on ESPN2, the MLB game of Philadelphia Phillies vs. New York Mets drew 230,000 viewers on TBS, Curse of Oak Island drew 1,699,000 viewers on History Channel, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta drew 433,000 viewers on MTV, and Chopped drew 385,000 viewers on Food Network.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 227,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership skew was 68.6% in favor of males.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 3.8% in overall viewership and but down 13.4% in key demographic viewership.

WWE News & Notes

Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Fort Worth, Texas featured Nia Jax making a surprise return. Following the end of the match between Jade Cargill and Tiffany Stratton, Jax came out and joined in on the attack that was started by Naomi. Jax laid out Stratton and posed with the WWE Women’s title in the ring. This was Jax’s first appearance since this past March’s Elimination Chamber 2025 event.

As noted before, Bianca Belair recently confirmed that she had suffered a broken finger injury at this past Sunday’s WrestleMania 41 Night 2 event. Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Fort Worth also featured WWE providing an update involving Belair being interviewed backstage talking about her injury and displaying a wrapped split on her finger. SmackDown commentator stated that Belair is currently expected to be out of action for some time.

Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Fort Worth also featured Zelina Vega defeating Chelsea Green to become the new WWE Women’s United States Champion. In a digital exclusive backstage interview with WWE, Vega gave her thoughts about her championship victory. Vega stated “Remember that part when we were talking about earlier that I’m at a loss for words? I think it’s even more now. I don’t even know what to say. I’m looking at it and it doesn’t feel real because this was something that was just in my dreams and now it’s real life and I’m holding it. It’s kind of just crazy. So I’m like, I don’t know. I can’t believe it’s real. I can’t believe I’m holding this right now and saying that my name is in the history books as the second women’s United States champion. That’s absolutely insane to me. I can’t wait to bring this home to my mom, to my stepdad, my brothers, my grandmother, everybody, my aunts. I can’t wait to just finally bring home singles gold to my family, it’s been a really amazing night for my household, so I’m very happy, very, very happy … It’s one that you always pray for, but you never really know if it’s gonna happen. I think hearing the words, you deserve it, as I was kind of walking up with this up the ramp, really shocked me because I felt like maybe the fans had given up on me, honestly. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to not just capture gold, but have a win. This felt like a win for me, but just also a win for my friends, my family, my fellow LWO members. I mean, Rey Mysterio is a former United States champion. I was like, I’ve seen him come back with this, and Eddie Guerrero was a former United States champion. This is just history. I can’t believe that I’m finally a part of it. So I’m so, so happy. I feel like I have to pinch myself, honestly, bro, because it doesn’t seem real.” Vega also gave her thoughts about the advice she would give to people who are grinding hard to reach their goals. Vega stated “I mean, the cliche is never stop, right? But I think it needs to be never give up on yourself. Because I have come close to that so many times in my life and there was always a turnaround. There’s always gonna be the moments where you hit rock bottom and then you pick yourself back up. So it’s never give up on yourself because if Zelina Vega can stand here as United States Champion… I’ve been told that they were too small, too fat, too short, too skinny, not pretty enough. I’ve been told everything in the world as to why I shouldn’t be champion, but I finally am.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

Friday’s 2025 NFL Draft event in Green Bay, Wisconsin featured Seth Rollins and John Cena making guest appearances. Rollins was the guest presenter for the Chicago Bears’ draft pick in the 2nd Round while Cena was the co-guest presenter for the New England Patriots’ draft pick in the 3rd Round.

Friday’s 2025 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Game 3 of Washington Capitals vs. Montreal Canadiens in Montreal, Quebec, Canada featured Kevin Owens narrating a hype video that aired prior to the start of the game.

WWE recently released one new video to their WCW Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was a WCW World Championship match of Sting vs. Diamond Dallas Page (c) from the April 26, 1999 episode of WCW Nitro.

WWE also recently released one new video to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was a Greatest Match Ever match of Edge vs. Randy Orton from WWE Backlash 2020.

WWE also recently released one new video to their NXT Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was the full November 20, 2014 episode of WWE NXT.

In a recent interview with the Busted Open Radio podcast, Bishop Dyer, former Baron Corbin in WWE, gave his thoughts about his issues with WWE’s decision to pull Bayley from WrestleMania 41 and WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque’s comments downplaying the online criticisms. Dyer stated “I’ve had a few days to kind of calm down because it made me extremely angry… Fuck you, that’s my sentiment. I mean, to do it to Bayley of all people. Someone who’s been there through COVID…has made lemonade out of dogshit repeatedly…is a model fucking employee. I don’t give a shit if she knew the storyline [ahead of time]. Please, do all this, take all these bumps, work your ass off, and two days before we’re gonna replace you…And I know Bayley’s going to be fine…but that is a moment and it is bullshit all the way through. She didn’t get to be on WrestleMania. She went down to NXT, elevated talent…does everything you’ve asked of her… Bayley deserved to be on WrestleMania…It is insane to me that you take that moment away.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

WWE announced one new match for the card of next week’s WWE SmackDown show at the Wells Fargo Arena is Des Moines, Iowa:

Aleister Black vs. The Miz