Killer Kross had a rebuttal ready that he was not able to use.
Back in 2021, as the NXT brand was approaching TakeOver: In Your House, there was a promo segment on the weekly TV show with Adam Cole and then-NXT Champion Killer Kross. This was done so that Cole could have an in to the NXT Championship match at TakeOver.
Cole suggested that NXT did everything to make Kross look special. Cole mentioned that Kross had the cool music, lights, fog machine and Scarlett Bordeaux and all NXT ever needed to do to make Cole feel special is ring the bell.
Kross has spoken about this segment in past interviews, but during his appearance on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast, he detailed the rebuttal he had prepared to use on Cole. Kross was told that he could not say it and one of the reasons that was given to him was that he was going to have a dominant performance at TakeOver.
A few people have asked me about this over the last few months [promo segment with Adam Cole on NXT] and I always laugh because it’s partially our fault, the wrestlers, how much people get worked into stuff because it’s our job. It’s our job to make it feel as real as possible. I think it was Dewey Foley who wrote that promo, pretty sure it was Dewey. He wrote it — I mean, I got the promo the day before, 24 hours before. Sometimes you get ‘em two or three days before, sometimes before the day of. I remember that promo, I got it the night before and I remember reading it and I thought, at first, I was like, I guess the promo’s unfinished because sometimes you get unfinished stuff and they just let me say whatever I wanna say because they trust me, you know? So, when I got to work that day, they were like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s not finished’ and I was like, ‘Okay, cool. I have some stuff I’d like to say’ and it was basically my rebuttal was pretty much the opposite of what he had said to me, which was something of the nature like, ‘Well, you need guys like me to make these people believe in you because there’s 17 year old kids in the audience the same size as you that can beat the living sh*t out of you in a legitimate fight so, when you’re saying this company makes me feel special, I make these people believe in you because without me, there would be no Adam Cole. You’d be in line at Dunkin’ Donuts with everybody else,’ you know what I mean? And they were like, ‘… You can’t say that’ and I was like, ‘Well what the f*ck? Why not?’ And they were like, ‘Well, you know, he’s been doing favors for people. He put Keith over and then he went under in the Fatal 4’ and something’s wrong with his wrist or something. I don’t remember. He had hurt his wrist at the time or something and then he did the thing with Pat [McAfee] and they were like, ‘We need him in the Fatal 5-Way [at NXT TakeOver: In Your House] because we’re gonna lose you soon and we’d like you to go over clean on everybody so you have clean kills on everybody going up. So this promo’s really for him to look strong’ and I was like, ‘No problem,’ you know what I mean? I’m killing these guys in the ring, I’m undefeated, I have the belt. It’s TV, it’s fiction. It’s a script so I was like, ‘Let him go for it.’
Kross has spoken highly of Adam Cole as a person and a wrestler. He said he tried to get a singles match with Cole for months in NXT, but that never came to fruition.
But no, he’s a good dude [Adam Cole]. I wish we got a singles. I was asking for a singles for months with him, but for whatever reason, that didn’t happen, and he was a pleasure to work with in the Fatal 5-Way [at NXT TakeOver: In Your House]. I wish I had my singles with Kyle [O’Reilly] too, but I was happy I got [Johnny] Gargano at least.
Kross along with Scarlett Bordeaux were released from WWE in November 2021. Last month, both talents shared that Ring of Honor, pre-Tony Khan, was interested in bringing them in for Supercard of Honor.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
