Karrion Kross candidly discusses his setback after NXT TakeOver XXX.
Karrion Kross rose to the top of NXT in quick fashion during the summer of 2020. Unfortunately, the same night he captured the NXT Championship from Keith Lee, he would suffer an injury that would force him to vacate the championship immediately.
Now, he is en route to recapture the NXT Championship from Finn Balor in the main event of NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver.
Speaking with Denise Salcedo (embedded above), Kross explained what it was like for him to reach the pinnacle of NXT and immediately have to vacate the championship and how that is feeding his desires as he sets down this path to what may be his second championship reign.
Denise shared the following quotes with Fightful
“The injury itself and being taken completely off course was absolutely devastating as you could imagine. It’s my life’s work,” said Kross. “The perception is that I was in NXT for a short period of time and found all this success. But people don’t take into consideration that it’s been many many many years that I put into this craft in order to get that one night. NXT TakeOver XXX at the time, to get in the ring, and compete for that belt, I put everything into that moment so to have that all derailed so randomly in a freak accident it was brutal but like anything in life when you’re dealing with a very serious traumatic situation you gotta pick yourself up, dust yourself off and say ‘where can I find the silver lining in this situation?’ I did that, and I rehabbed and recovered way before they thought I was gonna get back which I was very happy about. We’re back on track and we’re gonna stay after it now.”
Regarding his motivation to recapture the gold, Kross candidly states that he lost the perfect vision that he had intended for his original Championship reign and now, he has an opportunity to assemble that vision once again.
“I think the biggest motivating thing for me is obviously to kinda get back the full momentum that I had coming in before the injury. I had a vision that I was dead set on manifesting into NXT and we lost that. We lost this perfect vision, this thing that I was going to create for everyone to see. This is an opportunity now to get that back and to bring something new to life that no one has seen before. Karrion Kross an NXT Champion, defending, people have no idea what they're in for, and it's going to be awesome. Obviously, I gotta take [Finn Balor] down in order to do that. I am feeling very confident, especially after last week. I'm pretty certain I can do it.”
Kross vs. Balor is confirmed to headline the second night of TakeOver. That night will be the first NXT TakeOver that airs exclusively in the United States on Peacock. Fightful will have live coverage of that event beginning on Thursday, April 8, 2021.
