“#WeWantKross”
This was the social media campaign that became a popular trend for several days surrounding the WWE departure of Karrion Kross and Scarlett Bordeaux.
Now working as Killer Kross, the former WWE Superstar was joined by Scarlett for an in-depth interview on the latest episode of the popular pro wrestling program, INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet.
During the discussion, Kross and Scarlett went into great detail on their respective negotiations and ultimate departures from WWE, as well as why they feel it isn’t fair to AEW President Tony Khan for them to join All Elite Wrestling right now.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where they touch on these topics with their thoughts. Also below is a complete video archive of the discussion.
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.”
Killer 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.”
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.”
