WWE star Karrion Kross appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show to discuss several topics, including when he learned about his WrestleMania 41 role.
Kross said, “I get a text, ‘We need you at the building now.’ This is like noon… 1 PM (on the day of WrestleMania 41 night two), and I was like, ‘Oh boy.’ I was like, there’s a lineup of people here. I can’t get up and leave. So I just politely and as respectfully as I could, I just sent back a text like, ‘Let me get through all these people. They were all waiting here in line for a very long time. I can’t. Please understand.’ They were cool with it. Knocked out the line, went to work. What you saw in the AJ/Logan match (is what they needed me for). Honestly, I felt very grateful. I felt grateful. To have any part of the show whatsoever at all. You can want the world. You can want it all and you can go for it. But it’s important not to lose the gratitude of even having the smallest part of something so big, you know?”
On not initially being scheduled for the show:
“I was confused (about initially not being set for WrestleMania 41). Very confused but again, it’s not the type of thing that I think myself or anyone can stew in. It’s like, what do we have today on Monday? Maybe it’s your cup of tea, maybe it’s not. You have to try to make the best of that and try to hit a home run. Every week, I’m trying to hit a home run with whatever they give me. Whether it’s five seconds, whether it’s a background shot, something. It was an opportunity to make somebody laugh when they’re watching or make somebody really, really angry. I just circle back to that. I have to. Because I’ve seen people go nuts in this business. They’ll drive themselves insane trying to theorize what’s going on. All you can do is check in, ‘What do you need from me? What do you need from me on the show?’ And just try to give ‘em that.”
On Logan Paul’s WWE involvement:
“I’ll say this, I don’t have a problem with Logan Paul. I think he’s an amazing athlete and I think he’s doing really good work, and a lot of people will be pissed that I’m saying that. But it’s true. I don’t wanna B.S. around that. What I have a problem with is this idea within the system to reward the mainstream archetype like Logan with certain types of liberties and privileges that could be delegated to the people that have pretty much dedicated their entire lives and are here full-time. I struggle with that and I’m not the only one. I think it just needs to be said. I have no problem as a professional wrestler with anyone coming in and being on our show and doing anything. Just as long as I get to hit them with a steel chair as they walk in. If I can hit them with the chair! Then they can come in and do whatever they want. After that? You know, it’s fine. But, in all seriousness, we, the collective, the talent, the wrestlers, the performers, we can go viral too. I don’t want there to be this idea, this dependency that other people from other lanes are the only people that can do that. We can too and that’s why I say, it didn’t really come from a disgruntled place. It came from a place of passion. I wanna show people what they wanna see. I know what they wanna see, and I proved that. That was the whole point. That’s where that comes from and those are my thoughts on him.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
