While he received praise for his comments, some were not pleased with what Kross said.
Coming out of WWE WrestleMania 41, Megan Morant and Sam Roberts recorded a new episode of the Raw Recap Podcast and storming onto the show was Karrion Kross.
The night prior, Kross got involved in Logan Paul and A.J. Styles' bout. He tried to guide Styles to victory, but Styles refused the assist and ended up losing to Paul. On the aforementioned podcast, Kross spoke candidly about a myriad of subjects such as not being on the WrestleMania card, Joe Hendry being Randy Orton's opponent, and his contract status being reported on weeks before the show.
Kross was welcomed onto The Ariel Helwani Show and dove into the comments he made on the WWE podcast. He clarified that he's not disgruntled, but he's just hungry. Kross does not view what he said as complaining and sees it as him making his presence felt.
He went on to reveal that he received a standing ovation after making his remarks. Kross shared that some walked up to him in tears to thank him for what he said. He added that not everyone was happy as he 'sort of' got heat for it.
"I mean, we’ve always been ready to go, and we’re hungry. The biggest misconception anyone can take from what I said on WrestleMania is that I’m disgruntled. I’m not. I’m just really, really, really hungry. I’m really hungry. All of this is coming from a place of passion. For me, it’s all about the grand scheme of things. People are paying to come watch the greatest show in the world. I wanna be a reason, on the show, where they felt like they got every single cent worth of that. I wanna be more than just an easter egg, I wanna be more than just a guy in the back ruining people’s lives and I will admit I do enjoy ruining people’s lives. There’s definitely something wrong with me. But, only the internet can judge me.
I don’t think it’s a broad group of people that have misconstrued it. It’s a very small group of people that feel like it falls under complaining. It’s not complaining. It’s using your voice and speaking up and saying, hey, I’m here. I’m here, I want to be here. I wanna give you the best of what I have, in general. I mean -- I got a standing ovation when I -- I won’t drop names. I got a standing ovation when I saw everybody the following day, which felt awesome and I had no idea that that was going to resonate the way it did with people. A few people even came to me in tears, saying, ‘Thank you for saying what you said.’ I was just being honest. I had an open criteria that day and I told ‘em. I said, ‘People are gonna watch this. I have something to say, and I have a feeling people are gonna wanna hear this.’ So I said it… Sort of (got heat for it). Sort of. Yeah, not everybody was thrilled about that."
He opened up about seeing his contract status being revealed. At the end of March, Fightful Select reported that 2025 is a contract year for Kross. Kross admitted that seeing that information out in the public sent him over the edge and he's still upset about it.
"Whoever did it. That put me over the edge. I think that happened online, like, shortly after A.O.P. and (Paul) Ellering were gone. It was just like kind of one thing after another. I’m still pretty pissed about that. I don’t know who did it. It’s impossible to say. I have no idea, but, I was kind of out of my mind in that moment. So, it’s kind of hard to put myself back there. It’s just privacy, you know what I mean? Who the hell is supposed to know about that? Stuff gets leaked all the time."
As for Kross' new approach to his on-screen presentation, similar to what he exhibited on the Raw Recap podcast, he said it's just about being 100 percent real and honest. He thinks the shift came when he started working with The Miz.
"Yeah (there was a point when I decided to be more real & authentic). I think it probably happened when Miz and I were working together. I think something clicked there, you know? I couldn’t tell you specifically what it was but, it just hit me. I don’t even know what it specifically was. Something just occurred to me. I kind of wanna drop the act a little bit and leaning into what I’m feeling like is being called for me."
Kross has been back with WWE since 2022. He returned on August 5th of that year and that is when he'll be releasing his second book titled 'Life Is Fighting.'
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Ariel Helwani Show with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.
