Karrion Kross Reveals His Post-WrestleMania 41 Promo Incident Being a “Work”

As noted before, Karrion Kross made a surprise appearance during WWE’s WrestleMania Recap post-show following this past April’s WrestleMania 41 Night 2 show in Las Vegas, Nevada. During his surprise appearance, Kross vented about being left off the card for the show in favor of Logan Paul getting a match with AJ Styles instead of him.

A recent episode of The Ringer Wrestling Show podcast featured Kross as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Kross’ thoughts about his promo incident and revealed that the whole thing was just an elaborate “work.”

“Here’s really what happened. I was asked to do WWE Hall of Fame. We go, and accidentally they almost walk AJ and I through the same live shot. We had no idea. Absolutely no idea we were walking through a live shot on camera. It was kind of too late. They walk us through at the same time. I didn’t want to ruin the immersion of everything we did on Monday. It was kind of too late. I’m walking through the shot with a completely blown eardrum. He’s going on to do his thing with Logan Paul. I was like, ‘Ugh, I can’t let this fly.’ In earshot, I hear somebody bad mouthing me, one of the interviewers. I can’t remember if it was Jackie (Redmond) or (Peter) Rosenberg. I walk into the shot and I think the best thing to do to take the attention off the fact that AJ and I walked into the shot together is to just have a meltdown because that resets the baseline and changes the tone. So, that’s what I did. I said, ‘If you guys ever walk me and AJ through the same shot again, I’ll fight him, I’ll throw him over the railing, I’ll break the lights.’ I did all that and as soon as it was done, one the producers walked up to me and goes, ‘That was hilarious. Everybody in the truck was laughing.’ I explained what happened and he goes, ‘I know. Would you mind doing the Sam Roberts podcast the next day?’ ‘Sure, what do you want on the show?’ ‘Give me that guy.’ He shows me the viewership, metrics, and monetization. Of all the videos going up, that one is getting a lot of views. People were enjoying it and it all equals money.

We do the spot. I see them after the match and I run it by them one more time, ‘What do you want?’ ‘What we want is authentic and real.’ Sometimes, if things feel too worked, people check out. Especially with the central nervous system fatigue that comes with live entertainment. We just watched WrestleMania, why are people, after watching all of that, going to go to YouTube and watch the characters talking after? We just got full clip wrestling. With that in mind, I’m thinking, ‘What is the best way for me to entertain and engage people and where is Karrion Kross in the grand scheme of things? What is the story I’m telling? What is the story that has been told? He’s had one match on Raw. His group gets nuked. He has no match in Las Vegas, his hometown. He lost his match on Raw. He gets punched out by AJ Styles. He’s not in a good place. He’s in a bad mood.’ I sat down and improvised what I said. Once it was done, everybody was like, ‘Holy shit. That was amazing.’ ‘Thank you. Are we good?’ ‘Very good. That’s the guy. That’s the guy we need.’ ‘I agree.’ Shook everybody’s hands. I said, before I left, ‘Guys, please make sure everybody knows this was a work. Let them know that I’m not actually mad. I love it here. I’m just doing my job.’ I have to create compelling things for the audience to believe. One of the things that is so overlooked with all of this backstage insider stuff, you can call this real, fake, whatever you want. What we do legit is we turn pain into art. Whether it’s in the ring or outside the ring. That is the job. You can learn how to break your fall all you want. That canvas eventually will take you out. The irony of it, that canvas, you can make an amazing living and take care of your family. Eventually it goes, ‘You know what, you’re done now.’ Was it a shoot? To me, no. Was a lot of it true? Yes. That right there is the beauty in wrestling.

Everybody wanted to know, ‘Who is the guy in the truck? The guy in the suit and tie, and the guy in the truck.’ Here is the inside scoop. Nobody. There was no fucking truck. It was shot on a stationary camera, which is why I said the guy in the truck. So no one would feel personally attacked. The guy in the suit and tie in the truck is a metaphor for the corporate figure that comes into an art sector and sterilizes art for the sake of viewership and monetization. It can be fucking anybody. It’s not wrestling specific. It’s in all different lanes of entertainment. Television, music, we have to find a common ground of preserving the art when we’re going to try and monetize it. I wanted to say so much of what I did, and it meant so much on so many other different levels, that’s what that moment was supposed to be. A lot of people thought I was talking about Hunter. Hunter doesn’t work in the truck, nor would I ever talk to him like that. He was a wrestler. I was blown away people thought it was him. It was a metaphor. That’s basically what happened. Following that, a lot of people were pissed. Things got weird. Things got very very weird. Some people didn’t know. They didn’t tell the higher-ups that it was a work. No one said anything to me on Monday. The locker room loved it. I had people coming up to me. Some people pulled me aside crying saying, ‘You said the things we wanted to say for a really long time.’ I was just trying to do a good job for you, you guys watching. I wasn’t trying to start a revolution. The whole good soldier thing, they’re all based on real things. I had zero animosity towards anybody or anything. I was just trying to do a good job. That’s the job you’re supposed to do to make it real. A lot of it is. It just got weirder from there.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com