Jon Moxley gave Triple H’s phone number to Killer Kross and insisted that Kross give him a call.
After a full year with WWE, Killer Kross and Scarlett Bordeaux were let go from the company in November of 2021. Since their exits, both talents have lined up a number of signings, appearances and non-wrestling related ventures such as Kross landing a movie role.
They dove into their run[s] with WWE while being interviewed by Renee Paquette for her Oral Sessions podcast. During their conversation, Kross looked back on the singles match he had with Jon Moxley in 2019 for the ‘Future Stars of Wrestling’ promotion. After their match, Moxley asked Kross what was next for him and soon gave Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque’s phone number to Kross and insisted that Kross give him a call.
Moxley told the former ‘Karrion Kross’ that he would fit well in WWE and added that Roman Reigns would need someone else to work with after Drew McIntyre.
Kross: So, I basically kind of like put this promo together. It was like a short vignette, trying to test the waters to see if people would be interested to see if him [Jon Moxley] and I would work. Not knowing him but having mutual friends. I didn’t wanna call and ask for his number, I’m not that guy. I was like, ‘I’m just gonna put something out there and see if people would wanna see this’ and sure enough, there was an interest. Jon randomly texted me and he’s like — through a mutual friend he’s like, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ We start talking, I’m like, ‘I’m running a show in Las Vegas, Natural Born Killers.’ It was like a mix between UWFI Japan, a little bit like Bloodsport. I was trying to create an environment in Vegas to prepare people to actually go to Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport so I was like, ‘This is what I’m doing.’ He’s like, ‘Don’t tell anybody I’m showing up’ and let me tell you, when I did not tell anybody, not even the promoter knew until the day of that he was showing up. I was like, ‘We’re doing this old school and not telling anybody.’
Bordeaux: They thought it was gonna be someone else. He said something like, ‘I have a mystery opponent’ and they’re trying to guess, ‘Who is it? Who is it?’ No one guessed [it].
Kross: Gonna wrestle Dan Severn and then afterwards, someone’s gonna show up. So, he comes down, we work, we barely talked about anything, natural rhythm and chemistry was awesome. I’m talking to him after the match and he says like, ‘Hey, where do you wanna go? What do you wanna do?’ And I’m just rattling off some ideas and stuff like that and he goes like, ‘Hey, do whatever you want. I’m not gonna tell you what to do but, one day, Roman’s gonna need somebody else to work with after he’s done working with Drew and I’m just saying, I think you would do very well there but go wherever you want, do whatever you wanna do’ and in my mind I’m like, ‘Holy sh*t. This is a person who has been at the highest level,’ recently too. It’s not like it was a few years ago. Very humbled by that and I just thought to myself, like, ‘If he’s f*cking saying that to me, what other sort of level of assurance do I need? I need to stop f*cking around here.’ So he basically, he was just like, ‘Yeah, just call Hunter’ and I was like, ‘What do you mean just call Hunter?’ He said it like it was nothing. ‘Call him and just tell him you wanna show up’ and I’m just like, ‘Really?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah. I’m gonna give him your number. You’re gonna call him right now’ and it’s just like holy sh*t. That was a lot for me, you know what I mean? I just wrestled in front of a hundred and f*cking thirty people in a f*cking warehouse and he’s like, ‘Yeah, just call Hunter.’ When the time was right, I basically called Hunter and it’s so funny, so I had sent him a text just so he wasn’t getting a number randomly out of nowhere and I basically just told him, the first conversation I said, ‘Hey look, sir, I would love to be a part of the company. If you think I have any sort of value to contribute to the show, I have a lot of really interesting ideas.’ I talked to him about monetizing certain types of characters and symbols and stuff like that. I tried to appeal to the business-sense because that company can hire wrestlers from anywhere. Finding wrestlers I don’t think is really a problem but it’s finding that sort of total package [talent]. That’s kind of how Hunter and I began talking and it’s because of you two [Moxley & Renee Paquette].
Scarlett previously shared that there were conversations held about her transitioning to an in-ring role after Kross was moved to Raw as a solo act. Scarlett shared that she was not cleared to wrestle due to issues near her chest area.
She did not notice the problem until she was checked by medical. Bordeaux was told that once she was healed, she would be wrestling.
Bordeaux: For weeks, he was actually saying — you just had a feeling [that a release was coming] and I was like, ‘No, no, no. There’s no way’ and I wasn’t medically cleared yet. I was having matches before Raw and SmackDown because they wanted me to wrestle and after the second match, everything was going great, I get home that night and I look in the mirror and I’m like, ‘One of these doesn’t look like the other.’ Yes, [my breasts]. So the next day was NXT and I immediately go to medical, I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m not sure if I’m crazy. I’m not sure if they always look like this. Maybe I just –’ I just went to bed. You know, with the adrenaline from wrestling, you don’t even notice certain things hurt all the time so I didn’t even think anything of it, but I went to medical and they were like, ‘Oh my God, yes, one of your boobs is totally gone.’ I was like, ‘Okay, I can get the surgery and then I can manage, I can be ringside. That’s no problem. I just can’t wrestle right away’ but the plan was, I guess for me to wrestle so then they’re like, ‘When you’re totally healed, we’re gonna have you wrestle.’ So they scrapped all the managing stuff at that point and I was sitting at home for those last four months just waiting.
Kross made his Raw debut as NXT Champion against Jeff Hardy. He suffered a loss in under two minutes. Kross went to an agent and was told that there was a long-term story laid out for him and Jeff so don’t think too much about the loss. Initially, their match was supposed to be ten minutes but before Hardy’s entrance, the referee for the match informed Kross that he and Hardy had 90 seconds to work.
Kross: When I went up [to the main roster] and they asked me to do the match with Jeff [Hardy] and put him over, I was like, ‘Sure, that’s fine.’ I grew up a fan of Jeff and then getting to meet Jeff and actually him being really cool was an awesome experience for me. He’s literally one of the coolest people I’ve ever met so I was like, ‘That’s fine.’ I remember one of the agents came to me and they’re like, ‘Hey, there’s a long-term plan for this so don’t sweat it, don’t worry.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, cool.’ I do my entrance and I get out there, ref comes to me and he goes, ‘Hey, your ten minute match is down to 90 seconds.’ First time we’re working on television. You know, we don’t really know each other like in the ring, our rhythm. We come back from commercial and I’m trying not to laugh. If you see, if you go back and watch it, I’m smiling. You know, like closed-mouthed, trying to hold it back. Soon as Jeff got in the ring, I just snatched him and I just called what we needed to do and that was it but when I went back to NXT the next day, I spoke with someone there and I just said, I go, ‘Look, my biggest fear right now, my biggest phobia is that there’s a hole being dug for me and I am nervous that if I’m not permitted to crawl out of it myself and people absolve themselves of creating a situation that I’m not gonna be a return as an investment. I’m gonna get fired so what do you think I should do right now? Because part of this business is doing what you’re told.’ My intuition, intuitively was telling me that everything was off. Everything felt wrong and I felt something bad coming like four months before it happened but everyone I talked to was like, ‘Oh no! You know, everybody loves you, this is good, we have no problems,’ yada yada. But I felt it coming. I tried to, as professionally and politely as I could, talk to people in the chain of command about that.
Bordeaux: And get the idea over. You did the best you could with what you were given.
Kross: But yeah, and I just tried to be a good sport about everything.
Killer Kross will officially become a free agent in February. Both Kross and Scarlett are scheduled for WrestlePro’s February 5th show in Rahway, New Jersey.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Oral Sessions with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
