Cook: We Can Have High Hopes For Karrion Kross

You have high hopes for Karrion Kross? So does WWE! And according to our Steve Cook, that’s exactly what we should have.

I saw the same headline on a couple of wrestling websites on Thursday morning. That in & of itself is nothing new, but this one stood out to me. Why? Because it was the biggest “Duh” headline I’ve seen in a very long time.

“Report: WWE Has High Hopes For Karrion Kross”

Well, no shit. Anybody that watched NXT on Wednesday night and saw the production that was his entrance can tell you that WWE has high hopes for Karrion Kross. Now, an awesome entrance doesn’t guarantee success. Adam Rose had an awesome entrance. They had nothing for him past that. Gangrel had one of the best entrances of the Attitude Era, but he was never going to be pushed above the mid-card level. Bobby Roode, Aleister Black & Shinsuke Nakamura all had memorable NXT entrances that became less so once they moved to Raw/SmackDown.

The Karrion Kross entrance could lose its novelty too. We’re not at that point yet. Tell me this wasn’t the best debut on NXT programming since…ever.

It wasn’t perfect. The lip-synching didn’t really do it for me. I never have a problem with Scarlett moving around and doing Scarlett things, but the lip-synching was very awkward to me. Plenty of other people seemed to love it, so I might be in a minority there. The entrance might be tougher to pull off in a larger venue with more space for the performers to cover, but one can imagine a crowd getting behind it.

Add in the fact that Karrion Kross looks like a beast, carries himself like an indestructible force & has a certain je ne sais quoi about him, and it’s easy to see why WWE has high hopes. The potential is certainly there for big things.

There’s also the potential to screw it up.

We all know how it usually happens. WWE brings these new characters in and they become big stars for a short period of time. Then WWE decides that it’s time to make sure that these guys don’t get a big head. It’s classic 50/50 booking to ensure that nobody gets too big for their britches. It also ensures that nobody becomes too big of a star.

A gloomy outlook, I know. How can Karrion Kross be different? Well, for one thing, all of his early matches should be like the one he had on Wednesday. Nothing but Saito suplexes & chokeholds in a cloud of dust. At some point he can have an actual match, but we don’t need him out here selling for anybody lower on the totem pole than Keith Lee.

Karrion Kross seems unique and different right now. He has to be kept that way. He can’t be doing the same stuff that everybody on NXT does. That’s how Undertaker got over back around the time I started watching wrestling. His matches, movement and mannerisms were different from anything else on the show. He stood out.

Kross needs to stand out. NXT has had a tough time keeping that going. Not too long ago, Damian Priest was going to be their monster heel. He started having too many typical NXT matches and now he’s just another guy with a goofy nickname.

Sometimes the best suggestions are the simplest. For one thing, don’t call somebody “The Archer of Infamy”. For another thing, have Karrion Kross keep doing what he’s doing until the Quarantine Era is over and we’re back to somewhat regular wrestling shows. That entrance for the first time in front of a live crowd will be wild. It’ll make him a star. Assuming that WWE would like to make some stars here in 2020, and assuming that the reports are true & Kross is very popular with WWE officials, there’s no reason it shouldn’t happen.