Karrion Kross provides behind the scenes details about his WWE feud with Bobby Lashley

Prior to WWE Wrestlemania 40, Bobby Lashley commented on how he felt he had “been handcuffed lately” and Karrion Kross issued a response. During an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Kross commented on if there was real life heat between them…

“I hate that I’m saying this. But zero [heat], it was a work. He knows I feel this way about him. It’s not the first time I’m saying it. And unless you would have asked me about this, I would have never said it. I love that dude to death. After the match, I wanted to tell him afterwards so he didn’t think I was trying to butter him up before we went out. I told him after the match was done, expressed how much I love him, how much I’ve looked up to him, what an honour it was to work with him.

I remember when WWE brought ECW back. People can say whatever they want about it. I thought his section of being ECW Champion was awesome. I loved it. I was a bit of an ECW snob growing up. I was like, oh, ECW originals! I didn’t care. He’s awesome. He looks like the f*cking Hulk, and he’s diving out of the ring and doing crazy stuff. He’s putting people through tables and stuff. And then, for me personally, fast forward now I’m working Mania with him. I told him all that at the end of the match.”

“On the way to that Mania match, Bobby and I were constantly trying to find ways to intensify the conflict. Respectfully, we just felt like there were certain things on the way there that felt redundant. And it’s not me being salty about anything, it’s just him and I wanted to make this as intense and as crazy as possible. He had an idea to try to blur the lines on the way there, to make it feel as real as possible.

There was even one time Bob was like, ‘You know what we should do? All these guys, they like to talk and they like to run to the dirt sheets and stuff. Dude, we should fight at the beginning of the show. We should get in a fight because all these guys are going to go and call the dirt sheets and tell them that we actually had a fight, and it’s going to stir people up into what we’re doing on TV.’ I was like, ‘Bob, what? Hold on a sec. First of all, what happens if nobody breaks up the fight?’ And he was like, ‘Damn, I didn’t think about that.’ I go, Yeah.

Also, what happens if we get fired? Because what are we going to do? Hunter’s going to pull us aside and be like ‘What’s wrong with you guys?’ [We say] ‘Oh, it’s just a work.’ And he’s like, ‘You guys are bleeding, what are you doing?’ Then just the whole logical process of having to explain that it was a work and hoping that the office would have been okay with it, that we did that, and then it spilling. I was like let’s hold off on this idea. I said, I love crazy stuff like this, but please, let’s hold off on that idea.” (quotes courtesy of ITRWrestling.com)