Killer Kross Says He Prefers Longer Match Formats, ‘It Gives You More Of An Opportunity To Connect In The Ring’

Killer Kross is a huge fan of longer matches.

Since leaving WWE in late summer, Kross has shared the ring with many top indie names like Richard Holliday, Matt Cardona, Matt Riddle, and Calvin Tankman. Many of these matches have been lengthy, a change of pace compared to some of Kross’ final matches in WWE.

Speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp for a new interview, Kross noted that he prefers longer matches because they give more of an opportunity to tell a story.

“Really fun. It’s a breath of fresh air. I’ve always preferred longer match formats as my bread and butter because it gives you more of an opportunity to connect in the ring by telling a meaningful story. Like, it could be argued that there are bigger stakes for longer match types because longer match types usually revolve around a story. So there’s more time to tell the story. If you have a cold match, those matches usually end pretty quickly, five to seven minutes. But I really wanted to get back to that, the way I had longer match formats and perhaps NXT or even before then on the independents. But getting out there and being able to put in 20 to 30 minutes and just give them the full menu of everything, I’ve been dying for that and to be able to go out there and work the way that I know people would like to see and to be able to feel that reaction and connection right when you walk to the curtain in the middle of the match and then afterwards, like I really wanted to do that for a very, very long time. I got a little bit of that on the house shows before they almost axed all of them, but it feels good, man. It feels very good.”

Kross revealed that some people were surprised to see him go the distance like that.

“I was even telling somebody before, one of the biggest backhanded compliments was like people saying after the show, ‘I didn’t know you could go like that. Why didn’t you do that there?’ I was like, ‘If you only knew, if you only understood. I tried.’ No one’s telling me, ‘Don’t do that move because it’s too much or don’t do those two moves back to back because the guy would be dead. Do less, you’re a big guy.’ No, I can go out there and I could work exactly how I know the audience wants to see and to feel that reaction live, like I was saying.”

To round out the topic, Kross gave a special shout to his DEFY match with Calvin Tankman.

“One of my favorite matches that I’ve had since I’ve been out on the indies was against Calvin Tankman. That guy is like a human tank with a Ferrari engine. To go out there in front of the Defy audience and to be able to feel that knowing that was there for me the entire time, I just needed—a lot of the time—to go out there and do that. I was like, ‘I knew it. I wasn’t crazy.’ This right here, we could have done that in front of 60,000 people and my soul as a performer needed that. I really, really needed that. It felt very, very good.

Elsewhere in the interview, Kross talked about his success on social media and the response to his YouTube documentary. Check out his full comments by clicking here.

Fans can check out Fightful’s full interview with Killer Kross at the top of his article. After that, head over to our YouTube channel to catch up with our other recent interviews.