Karrion Kross expresses his thought that Roman Reigns is WWE’s modern-day Bruno Sammartino

Karrion Kross speaks about who he would like to share the ring with next in WWE and touches on his first run on the main roster

Photo Courtesy: WWE

Kross chats several topics after Extreme Rules.

Drew McIntyre and Karrion Kross met in a Strap match at WWE’s Extreme Rules Premium Live Event. Kross was able to score a win over McIntyre with the help of Scarlett. She used pepper spray to assist Kross to victory.

After picking up the win, Kross was invited onto The Ringer Wrestling Show and the question of who he wants to work with next was presented to him. Kross threw out Roman Reigns’ name and then went on to describe Reigns as WWE’s modern-day Bruno Sammartino.

Reigns has been Undisputed WWE Universal Champion for six months and has been in possession of the Universal Championship since August 2020.

Roman Reigns [is who I wanna work with next]. I feel like everyone should wanna be in the ring with Roman Reigns. For me, I hope nobody minds that I’m comparing him but, to me he’s our modern-day Bruno [Sammartino]. What he’s doing right now in my opinion is historic for our company’s history, this art of storytelling. It’s an amazing thing and it’s going very, very well. People are having fun, they’re enjoying what they’re watching, it’s something different every week but it’s — I could go on and on. That’s the guy that I’d wanna be in the ring with. Aside from that, I mean, I’m a people pleaser so whoever people really wanna see me in the ring with, me personally, that’s the direction I’m gonna lean in. I like big fight feel, I like those freak show fights, those Superman versus Batman, this shouldn’t happen, we wish it would happen but there’s no way it does happen and then it happens and it happens at WWE and that’s why people come to see the show, to cultivate the energy in a building. I wake up every day for that, I train for that, I’m aiming for that, you know?

Kross further touched on his first go-around on the main roster. He shared that there were people in the audience laughing at the mask and chest armor he was sporting when he arrived with it.

The former NXT Champion said that is a 180 from where he and Scarlett are now as members of the audience were singing their theme at Extreme Rules.

Well, I don’t know if I’ve ever said this publicly but, the first time I came out with the mask, there were people laughing in the audience. They were laughing and I always remember getting into this business and thinking to myself, when this is all said and done, I wanna leave this place a better place than it was before I came in. You wanna make it better. You wanna make people around you better, you wanna make the product better, you want your performances to get better. For me, I’m always chasing the perfect match. That’s like my wrestling philosophy, I’m chasing the perfect story and I’ve just always wanted to contribute my best foot forward artistically and be work-driven. When I came out and I heard people laughing, I was like, you know, what I’m doing right now, to me at the time presently, it felt like I was betraying everything that I wanted to contribute to what I was doing [for] the fans because the fan in me is still alive. That’s how I know how to read an audience. If you become too high up on your horse and you disconnect from them, ‘I’ll them what they’re gonna like,’ that’s never gonna work. So the difference between then and now, tonight I walked out and they were singing our theme music, the entire audience was singing our theme music. That was a moment we wanted to get to before the pandemic and I got that tonight in a packed house in Philadelphia so that was incredible so I would say that is the major difference between last time and tonight.

Kross is hoping to share the ring with Roman Reigns and Reigns’ next title defense is scheduled for November 5th at Crown Jewel where he’ll be defending against Logan Paul.

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Ringer Wrestling Show with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions. 

About Andrew Thompson 8006 Articles
A Washington D.C. native and graduate of Norfolk State University, Andrew Thompson has been covering wrestling since 2017.