Karrion Kross Says He Was Told To Not Acknowledge Crowd Support, ‘You Can’t Ignore The Crowd’
Since the start of the year, Karrion Kross bean to receive a groundswell of support from the WWE audience despite limited television time.
Kross would receive strong reactions online and when he appeared on WWE Main Event, slowly but surely getting television time on WWE Raw.
“I remember in the beginning some people were saying, ‘Hey, I wouldn’t take it seriously. It’s not going to last’ or ‘Let’s see if it’s for real when you go out there tonight or if it’s still there when we’re in a different city or state.’ When it was still there and it got louder and louder every week, that went away and it was, ‘We’re not really ready to fully embrace that.’ I was being told by certain people, ‘Don’t acknowledge it,’ which felt really wrong because having a connection with the audience, especially one like this, this doesn’t just come around for everybody. It wasn’t something that was constructed or thought of. This happened organically through a series of events and I wouldn’t even say it’s from something that happened this year. This is something that is happening because of what has happened over the last three years. We’re getting to a tipping point and it can be stated that it started because I punched through something and everyone saw what was on the other side of that. I don’t feel like we are all collectively going in direction that the audience would like us to go in. That part doesn’t feel good,” Kross said on “The Killer” part two documentary.
He continued, “Things feel fucked. It’s impossible to ignore it. I don’t want people to feel like they are being ignored, and a lot of them do, which is why it’s getting louder. I knew this was going to happen. If we didn’t lean into what the audience was asking for and what they wanted to see, they’re going to get louder. Pretending it’s not there or convincing ourselves that it’s going to go away, it’s not. This isn’t by a clever design, either. A lot of people thought or were telling me, ‘It’s going to go away.’ I knew it wasn’t.”
Throughout the documentary, Kross is seen meeting with fans, who are advocating for him to be on television more or happy to see him.
“I’m building a relationship and having a relationship with the audience, sometimes, with certain people, to me, it feels like they’re treating it as if I’m being rebellious or that it’s a problem that this has happened. This should not feel that way. It should not be treated like it’s a problem. It makes it feel like you outperformed or got ahead of something that they didn’t think you would get ahead of and they don’t like that you have gotten ahead of it. That’s the way it feels, and it’s not a good feeling. That’s based on conversations, things people have said. The merchandise, when it started to blow up, I had no idea until fans started pointing it out online. I go back to my points of contact and the company and ask them, ‘Is this true?’ They’re like, ‘We don’t know.’ How do you not know? I wanted to know if it was true. I did some digging and I came to find out it is true. Karrion Kross became a top seller through fan engagement. It’s amazing. People can say whatever they want about the online fans. I know the negativity is not welcomed and they’re not going to create and book around that, I understand that part, but support online is different because a lot of the fans online are people that are in other states who couldn’t make it to the current state of the show, but they’ll be there next week when you show up to their town. It was the online community that put that merch up there. Trivializing the online community in broad strokes, nobody is going to love you or like you. The more you try to make them love you and like you, they’ll hate you even more. I get not pandering to negativity, but support is a totally different energy we should be welcoming. That support translated from online to in the building over time,” he said.
Kross started to be used more leading into WrestleMania as part of the AJ Styles vs. Logan Paul feud. He then entered into a storyline with Sami Zayn, which featured matches at WWE Night of Champions and WWE SummerSlam.
“You can’t ignore the crowd in this business. You can try. It’s not going to be good in the end. You don’t want to make your audience feel like they are not part of this. You can’t tell them they are part of this and they are the universe and are so heavily involved in every aspect and then tell them certain subsections don’t matter and we can’t do that. That pisses people off and turns people away,” he said.
Kross’ contract with WWE expired on August 10th, making him a free agent.
Fans can find more comments from Kross on his departure here.
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