Killer Kross & Scarlett: WWE Exit, AEW, "We Want Kross" Chants, Pipebomb Promo

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Karrion Kross (@realKILLERkross) and Scarlett Bordeaux (@Lady_Scarlett13) are professional wrestlers previously signed with WWE. They sit down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss their time in WWE coming to an end, the conversations regarding contracts possibly being renewed, the viral promo after WrestleMania and the reaction to it, being added to WrestleMania at the last minute, what's next for them in wrestling, possibly returning to WWE or signing with AEW, and more! 

Buy Killer Kross' new book "Life Is Fighting" here: https://a.co/d/4ckIswy

 

On the day the contract expired:

Scarlett: "I'd say we knew for months what was happening, what was going to happen. I hope it's okay for me to say this, but I'm kind of his Game of Thrones Red Woman. I have been for a long time when it comes to astrology and looking things up, and a lot of the stuff I do on the paranormal show is a bit real with the tarot cards. So I did see that we were going to have some sort of contract dispute, but it was going to take a while. And I did feel in my gut like we're going to step away since like, February."

Karrion Kross: "I mean, we've told very few people about that, but yeah."

Were you trying to make things work then?

Kross: "Always trying to make things work, always trying to make the best of anything and everything, right?"

Scarlett: "You approached Hunter back in January, actually letting him know that you want to stay."

Kross: "And you. I said we would both like to stay."

On Scarlett’s contract negotiations:

Scarlett: "So after you talked to the representative of talent relations about your contract. One of the last questions before the 24-hour notice was given, Kevin asked where I stood in all these contract negotiations. And they said, 'We'll get to her once we're done with you,' which I took as them using me as leverage against him. I do feel like if he agreed within the 24 hours that they would have offered me something, would it have been the same amount as it was before? Would it have been less? I don't know. But all in all, it felt like a massive, massive red flag, and I did feel like it did come off a bit misogynistic, because originally I was hired before you, and the idea that I have no value without him, and it's only determined by whether or not he signs, that came off as very misogynistic to me."

Kross: "I told you this a long time ago, but didn't really ever publicly talk about this. When I signed to go from NXT to Raw, somebody said the exact same thing to me over the phone, and I asked her, I said, 'What do you think?' At that time we had no reason to ever think it would be strange or go sideways, so I signed it, being told we'll get to her after we get to you. I go up to Raw, then we go into like Mad Max and the Thunderdome, and she's at home. So I was like, well, I'm not gonna do that again. We already saw exactly what happened with that."

Scarlett: "I was clear to manage, but not wrestle. So at any point, I could have come up and done exactly what we did on NXT, but they said they wanted to separate us and wanted me to wrestle once I was clear after the breast augmentation that popped during that dark match. But then I was cleared, and it was a few days later that they actually fired both of us."

Kross: "She was at TakeOver when I wrestled Joe to drop the belt, she was ready to manage, and they told her, 'Don't go out.' We're just like, what's going on here? I was like, can we address this publicly? And they were like, 'No, don't talk about it.' I was like, This is bizarre."

Have you talked to WWE since leaving?

Kross: "I mean, she talks to the girls, I talk to the guys in the locker room."

Scarlett: "But not the office. Well, after they spoke to you, they did call me the next day, and it was very strange, because they were like, 'Oh, I'm sure you know what's going on with Kevin'. And I'm like, 'All right, you're talking about what happened with him, sure, but what's going on with my contract? You're only talking about him.' And they said, 'Well, we're gonna let your contract lapse.' I'm like, okay, that's totally fine. I'm sure everything's gonna work out. We love working there so, you know, the lines open if you guys ever want to call us. And then he goes, 'Yeah, you know, the lines both open both ways. I know you guys had a great relationship with Nick Khan and Hunter. You should definitely call them.' And I was like, wait, what does what does that mean?"

Kross: "Well, then why were we talking to him in the first place, anyway?" 

Scarlett: "And he was saying every single thing that he was saying was coming straight from them. So it left us very confused, very confused." 

Kross: "Yes, at one point I wanted him to be able to explain to me whether, for instance, the book sales, it's my life story, where is that on all of this? Forbes wrote an article that we were the top seller in the company for the merchandise. He didn't want to look at any of that. Didn't want to discuss any of that. He's telling me that's irrelevant to the conversation in determining my value, that's crazy. My life story is about a kid in the audience of their shows growing up, wanting to be a part of the show, getting into the show, and writing a book about how was part of the show. And now he's telling me that's irrelevant? What is the statement here? Nothing I've done over the last three years is relevant to the conversation? The book that they're making money off of my life story is irrelevant to the conversation? And you're asking me to agree to a figure with a statement like that attached to it? Anybody with any sort of dignity or self-respect is not going to say, You know what that sounds like a really good deal to me. Like there were just red flags all over the entire conversation. And I asked him, 'Are our bosses aware of what you're saying?' He's like, 'Oh yeah, yeah, they're aware of it.' But I have no reason not to believe you can't be lying to me on the phone. So when he says you have a great relationship with them, you should call them. Well, what more is there to talk about when you tell somebody that all of this stuff to track in terms of performance and your value to the company is irrelevant? What the hell are we talking about?"

Scarlett: "It's this feeling that no matter how much hard work you put in, whether or not your promos are good, whether or not your matches are good, whether or not you sell merchandise, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, you're only this number that they choose for you, and it doesn't matter what, how it's determined, but there's nothing you can do to improve your situation. It's like getting hired an office where, you know, you're hoping one day that you're gonna get that raise and, you know, be in a better position, but they say, No, this is what it's gonna be forever. Doesn't matter how hard you work. But it's kind of that feeling."

Kross: "I was just kind of blown away. That was not the conversation we thought we were gonna have."

On his viral promo after WrestleMania: 

Kross: "So we do that. Everybody loved it. We leave. The next day was weird at Raw. So aside from everything that I've talked about, so we don't talk about it again, I get a phone call from somebody in talent relations, and he says, 'Creative is not happy. There's heat. They're pissed.' I was like, Well, I apologize about that. Let me go take care of that right now. I have a great relationship with them. They're right across the hall. He's like uh, I said, 'No, no, dude, this is my fault. Let me take care of it. No problem.' I go across the hall. I speak to some of the writers, explain everything. They're like, 'We have no idea what you're talking about. We haven't talked to that guy in two weeks.' Some of them didn't even see it. So I was like, What's going on here? So walk around the building and just looking at everything, everyone's saying, Hello, everything feels fine. I call him back, no answer. The next day, no answer. I think it was like the third day he finally picked up. He's like, 'Yeah, I shouldn't have said it that way. I apologize, it was actually Hunter.' And I was like, man. 'So since we spoke, have you talked to Hunter and explained everything to him that I explained to you?' He's like, 'No.' And I was like, so you're letting our boss just sit there and fume for how many days now? You could have just told me this on Monday. He was down the hall. Could go talk to him and just explain all this. This is like a misunderstanding. So I eventually did speak with Hunter and cleared the air with him, you know, it's a massive company with a lot of different departments, and not all of them are in lockstep with communication. He was super cool about it. Once we spoke to him, he understood where I was coming from. It wasn't like a live thing. It was on YouTube. But just weird man. That wasn't the first time I got an apology from him."

Was it because it looked like you went into business for yourself?

Kross: "I think the image or the idea of the brand looking like the bad guy is not something they want, for whatever the reasons are, and that's okay, it's their show. It's not like you go on to Curb Your Enthusiasm and rewrite Larry David scripts, you're on Larry David's show. So I understand that. But really, what I was doing was I was just taking different things that played out and turning paint into art, as I was saying."

Scarlett: "I can't remember who it was, but there was someone in the office who came to us and they're like, 'Hey, there's a lot of people in the office right now that think that they're the suit and tie in the truck and they're all wondering who it is.' We're like, Oh no."

Kross: "I was like there was no truck that day. That's why I said this guy in the suit and tie in the truck. It's everybody in the truck was cool. When I didn't have something that required me to be in the building, I would go in the truck and I would watch a show, and I put the headphones on and listen to how things were timed and cued and the changes. I wanted to learn every single aspect of it. Everybody's awesome in the truck. We went to dinner with a few people in the trucks."

Do you think the promo led to the contract negotiations?

Kross: "No. Things felt weird, even going back into January. So I feel like at the height of what we were doing on TV with our character presentations, with final testament, stuff like that, I feel like we were entering something new and fun, actually, with Miz, who is absolutely wonderful to work with. The best. That guy is just like a fountain of information and knowledge. He helps everyone around him. He's completely selfless. I loved working with him, but the dynamic of Miz and I being able to, at least for me, show some range instead of just being the brooding, cryptic guy, you never know what he's talking about until it's too late, or you never even know what the hell he's talking about, in general, because some stuff never got paid off. But working with him, and then working with the Wyatts. I feel like now things are starting to connect with people. So January rolls around, we have the conversation about remaining with the company. I feel like we're kind of like at that time, at our peak in terms of connection and some of our best work, then the whole group is fired, and then we're just doing backstages. And I wrestle, I think, one time before WrestleMania against AJ, and that was it."

Scarlett: "You were doing backstages. They had basically taken me off TV for three months. Yeah, essentially. And then something very strange happened on the European tour. Do you remember that? So there were a few people in locker room that would always fight for us. AJ Styles was one of them. AJ would always fight for us. Miz would always fight for us. Great people. So every single time he had to a backstage, because I know some people noticed why isn’t Scarlett in this? Every single week Kross would ask, 'Why isn't Scarlett written into this? She can just be there.' They said, 'Oh no, not this week, not this week.' So a few months went by, AJ is supposed to be in this backstage with us. And he's like, 'Doesn't make sense that you're not in this.' And I'm like, Well, that's what I thought, too. But every week they said no. AJ went to the office, got approved that I could be in it later on, we shoot that. And one of the producers comes up to me and says, How did you sneak yourself in there?" 

Kross: "I remember that. We were pissed."

Scarlett: "I'm like, so this has been something that's been talked about to remove me."

Kross: "Yeah, it felt that way. There was. It was weird. You were disappearing out of these things where I'm standing 50 feet away and seen for 30 seconds as like an Easter egg."

Scarlett: "I'm like, is this intentional? That was the only time in my WWE career when I was like, I feel like they could be trying to get rid of me and only keep you. It's the only time I felt that way."

Kross: "I do remember too. Anytime I would ever bring up if she could be in the shot, if I would see kind of the sides of the day, they would be like, Yeah, we just want to focus on you. And you think that week, it's like, okay, they really do just want to focus on me, but then it happens second week in a row, third week in a row, fourth week in a row, and now we're looking around, going, what's going on here? Like, would it really disrupt what we're trying to accomplish here? A lot of the people that I was in the backgrounds with people we never even worked with. So what would be the point of constantly removing her out of the shots, then they never led anywhere. It was weird, man. It was very, very weird."

On a last-minute Mania addition:

Scarlett: "I feel like the only reason you got that opportunity to do that interview was because you were riffing on the Hall of Fame red carpet, which that whole thing was hilarious. I feel like that's only a reason that you got that spot at Mania, because we didn't find out that we were supposed to be part of WrestleMania until 1:30 pm that day. We were at WWE World signing, and we get a text saying, Come to ringside. And we say we're 15 minutes away at WWE World. What do you mean come to ringside? And even talent relations had no idea. So we got a message from a producer."

What time did you get there?

Scarlett: "1:45 pm. We had kids in front of us, a whole lot of kids. I said, we're not getting up until we get through all these people. There's no way they've been in line for a long time. Yeah, but that was sort of the mentality going into things that day was like, we're disappearing off the program. I need to take control the situation and show everybody, even at my own risk, that I can do this with as little amount of time as possible. Doesn't even need to be time on Netflix. Give me time on the channel, which they did on the YouTube channel. We were able to go, you know, through the roof with just a little bit of time and no scripts in front of us."

On what’s next for them:

Kross: "To be honest, everything we've been doing has been really enjoyable. I'll speak for me personally, having the freedom to assess the audience, where we're at on the show, where we're out on the card, who I'm working with, what everyone else is going to be doing on the show, and how to diversify what we're going to do on the tail end of it, and be able to bring that to life and hear the reactions and feel that. I mean, I love being in WWE, but being able to actually perform my artistry in the way that I know people want to see it, and being able to hear that and feel that back, nothing beats that. Nothing beats that. I want to do more of that. I want to go back to the places that I was performing. I'm interested in going to new places. I'm very content with the schedule that we've been building and what we're doing, going to the conventions, being able to meet fans, aligning that with the book tour, man, it's been awesome. Being able to meet people, especially the New England area, people coming from Providence, that's where things really took off with the we want Kross stuff. There's people driving from all over the northeast to meet us in these different places, in these cities, and they all have their story about where they were when that took off. Being able to hear that people getting tattoos of our characters on them, like people."

Scarlett: "People naming their babies after us. I know that sounds insane, but people have come up saying, Hey, this is Scarlet Karrion. And there's been another Scarlett."

Kross: "Just being able to show up anywhere, at any time and do anything, and creating an air of unpredictability at these shows, I think also serves something very interesting to fans as well."

On possible interest in AEW:

Kross: "I don't think we should say who we do or don't talk to."

Scarlett: "We have friends everywhere. That's the thing. We have friends everywhere. Around 2022 right before we came back, there was a conversation about you coming in, but the story wasn't, it didn't really make sense."

Kross: "I wanted to do something bigger for Tony at the time, so we just said, let's stay in touch. And had planned to do something. There's a thing that happens when people either exit or get released from a commercialized wrestling company where, and I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody, but I just know that sometimes people freak out because the ground falls out from underneath them, financially, they get scared. So they feel like the best thing to do, so nobody forgets about them, is to sign somewhere in sort of like a semi-panic or something, or perhaps they really just want to go there, and they just want to get it over with and knock it out. That's also a scenario. We've never felt supported like this in our entire lives in the fan base. Once you've been seen by the WWE Universe, or you've been seen by any sort of massive amount of global fan base, they come to where you go, and we're in a really fortunate position where we were able to lock in that connection they were waiting for us to make with them before all this happened. So everywhere we go, they come with us. And as much as we may miss being on the road and being there and performing in front of the WWE Universe, they show up, it's like they're still with us, you know. And maybe it's not in the massive amount of droves, as you'd see in an arena, but they come out, and we appreciate that. And even our fans, before WWE had been still riding with us. We still see them all the time at these shows. So, you know, we're just enjoying the process and taking things one day at a time. There's no need to make a decision that's going to be fear based. If the right one comes around, more importantly for me, I'll speak for me personally, creatively. If I know that this is something people want to see, then I want to do it. I've always been sold on a creative principle versus money. If you put a pile of money in front of me and there's no principles attached to it, I'm telling you straight up, I'm not interested. If I was lying to you about that, I would have just took what they offered to me. But if you remove principles out of the situation, I'm out. I can't do that. I can't. That's not why I got into this. If I was just looking for money, then you’d get a job doing anything. There's a lot of high paying jobs. I want to create something that people will hopefully remember forever. That's what I've always aimed to do."

Scarlett: "The thing is, we know what it feels like to be at WWE when it's at its best, when you have that connection with the writers, with your bosses? When everything's great and it's the best company you've ever worked for? Like the highs are high there. We have some of our best memories at WWE. So we still have that hope that that feeling is still there, which is why we still talk about it that way, that place could still be what we remember and what we've experienced before. The thing about going somewhere else, it's almost like jumping from one long-term relationship into another, when you're still hoping that that connection is still there with the previous company, that they're going to do the right thing, that they're going to call. If we ever go to AEW, we're going to be flying the AEW flag. That is going to be our home forever. Whatever our next company is, that's it. Right now, we're still talking about WWE the way we are. To go over there and be like, oh, you know, we're just here to just go back to it. We wouldn't want to do that to him. So if we go there, we're like, No, we're going to make this company the absolute best. It's true. We're going to be and we'll do that wherever we go."

On possibly returning to WWE:

Kross: "I mean, I'll speak for myself. You could answer this separately, if you like. I don't know. I don't know what that door looks like, or what's even on the other side of it. I'm still completely perturbed by the conversation that we had, it was so bizarre and strange and shocking."

Why was it such an 11th-hour type of thing?

Kross: "Well, that's a great question. It kind of feels like pressure tactics."

Scarlett: "I think it's sports business. Is the kind of stuff I've read about that a lot of entertainment industries do to put the pressure on last minute, so you don't have a lot of time to think and you panic. If you know your value, and the thing is, we know what it feels like to not make money on the Indies. We've learned our value. We've struggled. It doesn't scare us, if that makes sense, doesn't scare us being independent." 

Kross: "We'd rather make less money and feel like we're earning our money than to just show up somewhere and collect a handout and have no room for growth. I'm not going to do that. That's just not how I'm wired."

Scarlett: "If you accept something less than what you truly want, like in your gut, you can't be surprised when you're not happy later on."

Kross: "I'm not going to be one of those people living at the bar in the hotel. I saw that on the Indies coming up before I even had anything to do with WWE. Hyper successful people. I mean, for lack of better way to explain it, Self Made Millionaires, they're miserable. Because, more than likely, they accepted something that they weren't happy with, close the distance financially, on whatever it is they were, looking to get or wherever they were looking to land. No, there's no way." 

Scarlett: "I asked you, Is money the most important thing to you? I asked you if you were making this amount of money, but things stayed exactly the way they were. Would you be happy? If you were making a fourth of what they offered you just doing your own thing, would you be okay? You said, Yes, of course. Because what were you really looking for? Like, what? What did you get into this for as a kid, as a wrestler?"

Kross: "The artistry of it, making moments so people could remember them, the way I did when I was little, when I saw them happen."

Scarlett: "And then the answer was very easy the next day." 

On opening up in his new book: 

Kross: "Oh, yeah, kind of the whole thing. The place I was in before I met Elizabeth. That was scary for that to be in the book. But I just thought I wanted people to be open to potentially finding a soul mate or the love of their life, when they might not necessarily feel like they're ready to have that in their life. I could have closed myself off to that, and I would have been the biggest mistake of my life. I was very upfront to her as to where I was, and she was like we'll take things one day at a time and see where we're at. I was in like, a very, a very weird place, but couldn't deny that I loved her."

Scarlett: "I also chased you very aggressively."

Kross: "Which I loved, yeah, that certainly made it very easy."

Is life still fighting?

Kross: "It's always fighting. Every single day, my feet touch the floor. I have thoughts run through my head saying, I'm going to disappoint everyone today. I'm going to fail. We're not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. And then as they take one step forward, every single step on the way away from my bed to the kitchen and I get my black coffee every single step away from that bed, I say, No, you know what? I can do this. I actually can do this, and I'm going to do it today. Today is going to be a step forward. It's not going to be a step backwards. Every single day life is fighting."

What are Karrion Kross and Scarlett grateful for?

Scarlett: "My dogs, this crazy man in my life, and my health."

Kross: "My parents being alive, having people follow us around the country, and being able to live this life."

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