In a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet as part of the INSIGHT With Chris Van Vliet podcast, WWE SmackDown superstar Karrion Kross discussed several topics, including the initial plans for himself and the late Bray Wyatt (Windham Rotunda) to face off as part of WrestleMania 39 earlier this year, noting that only some writers and higher-ups were aware of the plans, with ideas for Alexa Bliss, Bo Dallas and Scarlett considered.
Highlights from the interview are below:
On original plans for WrestleMania 39: “I haven’t talked to anybody but my wife about this, so fast forward, we were supposed to work last WrestleMania, nobody knew that except for a collection of writers and some people in the office. We were slated to do something, and we would talk for hours about how we wanted to get into it, what we wanted to deliver creatively for people, where we thought we both needed to be, we had you know, ideas with Alexa, Bo and Scarlett, and then everything happened the way it did, but he left a mark on anybody and everybody that he ever met, and it’s just very strange the way everything kind of just played out, like beautiful and strange, and he was always an inspiration to me, and always showed me warmth, he showed everybody warmth, you know what I mean, but I just have so many, I have more stories than we have time to share, but we were cool and I’ll never forget him.”
On getting tattoos in honor of Bray: “I was just approached in the middle of the day by a lot of the staff, they had let us know that there was a local artist in town. We’re all upset you know, it’s still unsettling for a lot of us what happened, so we just decided to collectively all do it you know, it was something we all wanted to do together and that’s kind of how it came about, it was very spontaneous, but it was a no-brainer.”
On past interactions with Bray and how Bray believed that they would face off at WrestleMania one day: “I didn’t want to get too much into it until we were here, it’s not a double-talk conversation, but Windham and I were talking on and off for like a long time. When I was an extra in WWE, he would always talk with me backstage, it was never about wrestling, but about horror movies or tattoos or music, and then I wouldn’t see him, we weren’t friends, but he was very warm to me, and I think it was around 2018, 2019, he reached out to me and he was like, we need to dance, and I was like alright, I was blown away somebody that I look up to as a performer talking to me, like indie Killer Kross who hasn’t made a name yet, or drawn any money. As we got close to that time, I went to getting on board with NXT, we do the entrance, suplex Leon Ruff on his head a couple of times, choke him, and he reaches out again, he was like, it’s going to be me and you at WrestleMania one day, and I was like, my God, I just always thought him and I were going to do this in a different capacity, you know.”
The full interview is available at this link.
