- 02/14/2019 (1:19:35 am)
- Bob Mulrenin
Guest: Killer Kross
Date: 02/13/19
Your Host: James Walsh
Tick Tock! The clock is ticking down to Impact Wrestling’s UNCAGED special this Friday evening on Pursuit and Twitch where Killer Kross, our guest of the week, challenges Brian Cage, Moose, and champion Johnny Impact in a Fatal 4 Way match for the Impact Championship.
In this hard hitting interview, we discuss inter-gender wrestling, his menacing persona, Lucha Underground, and the great experience at Impact Wrestling thus far.
Please visit http://wrestlingepicenter.com/ to listen to/view or download this interview!
“Well, lets see what we have here. We have Johnny Impact. I guess you could say he’s World Champion. We’ve seen him lose to me. We’ve seen him lose to Moose. We’ve seen him technically lose to Brian Cage twice or three times in one night. Then, there’s me – The Uncrowned Impact World Champion. So, technically I’m defending my title in a Fatal 4 Way. That is how I’m observing this situation.”
On potentially having to face off with his partner Moose in the match:
“Oh, he and I are going to be fine. We’re not going to have any problems.”
On getting to work an angle with Johnny Impact:
“It is very cool. This is something we have wanted to get around to for quite an extended period of time. We always knew this was going to happen in an odd way. We just didn’t know where and we didn’t know when. It is very cool to see it materialize. The odds that you get to work with a friend and have a program, perhaps, with someone that you trust, it is a great privilege.”
On possibly facing Taya Valkyrie in an inter-gender match:
“I laugh at this subject maniacally and hysterically. We are living in a common era right now where hypocrasy, double standards, and social non-issues seem to really rule the issues people choose to discuss. And, they choose to discuss these things from a very absurd emotional state rather than a critical thinking point. The fact of the matter is professional wrestling is a performance art and in the year 2019, no one is going to be convincing anyone that this is “real” in comparison to Mixed Martial Arts and any other contact sport. A lot of people in our industry get offended when you discuss it like this because we get hurt all the time and the life of it is very real. I wouldn’t go as far as to use the word “fake” because the word “fake” is really a very broad stroke that takes a piss on everything that we are doing. It’s a show! It’s a show! We have a lot of characters, we have writers! People know these things! So, you have people who want to be recreationally outraged about anything they possibly can and this, Inter-gender wrestling, is just another subject that they’re not exercising any critical thought in. When you go watch the Terminator – This is one of the greatest Sci-Fi movies of all time. Maybe not a movie for everybody. But, for the most part, it is iconic. The script, the delivery, the execution of this film spawned a lot of different underdog stories for women. You can look at Terminator as a masochistic, horrible, pro masculine leaving the woman as the underdog. Or, you could look at it as Linda Hamilton had an excellent opportunity to showcase that a woman could carry a movie. She did that in Terminator 2 as well. There is a giant robot bodybuilder trying to kill a woman for two hours! Everyone went and watched it and enjoyed it. It’s a performance art! It is not exactly “real”, OK? The way I observe this is men and women belong in the ring together. It is not a problem. It is not something that there has to be a broad, mass abundance of. But, I think it is time for people to relax. And, quite honestly, it is more or less a back handed compliment to tell a woman that they can’t be in the ring with a man. If we want to preach equality and we want everyone to have an equal opportunity, allow a woman to have an equal opportunity to be in the ring with a man. It is a performance art! We’re not actually going to try and kill each other! This is a TV show. People need to calm down! (laughs) I appreciate the emotional investment that people have in our program and in wrestling – I really do. I’m not trying to take anything away from that. But, enjoy the show! It is meant to elicit an emotional response. Allow us to take you on a ride!”
On being the White Rabbit in Lucha Underground:
“It was a blast and I was sold very quickly on it because Paul London and Chris DeJoseph called me about it. I think, literally, I was on a plane within 7 hours to start filming that. I was able to pull off a variety of different things for a variety of different characters. Many different ideas were considered and they were hitting a wall with this one. They ran it by me and said they wanted me to put my two cents in on it and they wanted me to make it mine. I wanted to contribute to the product with anything I could. Would I have liked to have contributed more and did I think I was going to be contributing more? Yes! But, due to things we don’t have time to discuss, it turned out like this. But, I’m happy! I’m really happy with how it turned out. And, I’m happy people enjoyed it. That is why I do this so if that happened, that is a touchdown!”
On the possibility of a Lucha Underground Season 5:
“I wish I could be the guy to provide everybody with some closure on that but I have absolutely no idea. For real, I have no idea!”
On the origins of his crazy Killer Kross persona:
“Well, at the risk of sounding legitimately insane… I have a lot of influences from novels, from comics, from films, from wrestling… I really just try to let these things breathe through where this Killer Kross is from. I have a whole context in my mind of where he would be at any time, what he would be doing, what he would be thinking, how he would be handling different situations because if you do that like an actor would in a series where you develop that character for 8 months, you can take that character anywhere and it will come off with absolute sincerity. You can see the same wrestling moves over and over again – There is a redundancy of wrestling moves. But, what you’re not going to see that is not redundant is execution of sincerity and character presentation. I realized that right off the bat with this. I said everyone has already seen powerbombs and suplexes and yeah, I’m going to do them. I know what people want to see in wrestling and I’m going to give it to them. However, what can I show them that is going to be really unique? I just played with different character presentations and combined a lot of things that I knew well and felt I could pull off sincerely and believably. And, some of it comes from social media. I can’t even tell you how often people come up to me and mention something I did a month ago, 6 months ago, a year ago, 3 years ago that stuck with them and it was a moment. The devil is in the details. I’m all about that. I never, ever throw works to the wind. If you enjoy watching things for details, that will always be in my work.”
On why he resisted pro wrestling before he caved into the temptation:
“I really did not think I had a shot at becoming the person that I am today character presentation wise. It was just a case of not having a support system to pursue it and being better at other things that provided me a very comfortable living. It just dawned on me that being financially stable does not equate to being fulfilled in life. I have a variety of different occupations I could always fall back on and have that white picket fence kind of thing. But, I wanted to be fulfilled. And, I have always loved pro wrestling ever since I was a kid. I pulled the trigger on it one day. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. I went in different directions but I just realized this was never going to go away – I have to try it. In the back of my mind, I always had this phobia that once I did, it was going to take over my life. I always loved watching it. I knew it so well! I knew once I got my hands in it and started to play, that is exactly what happened!”
On his present run with Impact Wrestling:
“I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I don’t mean this in a derogatory way but I have enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I was going to because I have been given a lot of creative freedom as far as the things that I have been doing – So much that we don’t really have time to get into here. But, I’ve been able to take things that I’ve done elsewhere and independently really breathe here. That was always my intention. I’ve been getting this ready, what people are watching, for a long time on my own accord. So when people say about this so authentically, they really don’t realize I have been in this skin for a really long time. The fact that I am able to show people this – The odds of that happening are slim to none. But, the writers believed in this when they saw it. That had a big part in it. Because, they see everything. They are very over-critical for good reason. They oversee everything. They were like, “This needs to be on television.” I said, “Yeah, you’re right. It does! So, lets get it out there!” (laughs)”
On the rumors that WWE had high interest in him shortly after his Impact debut:
“That is absolutely true. Yes. (laughs) Everything happens for a reason. I don’t say this in a negative way but I don’t think people in WWE internally or the fan base would have had any idea how to receive this character if I had went there first with it. That has a lot to do with their general platform and their presentation. I don’t think they would have known how to implement this character. So, the fact that it is happening elsewhere… Maybe one day there will be a time and a place for this guy on that stage. But, this (Impact) is the perfect place to be doing this.”
On the birth of AEW:
“This is excellent because, number one, it presents more working opportunities for all of us. Number two, the more pro wrestling there is, the better, I think. It is going to raise everybody’s game. The more availability of this. the more it is going to open the door to the casual viewer. Anything that this company is going to do with the players that have already been announced is going to be top notch outstanding. It is going to be conducive, in this whole grand scheme of things, to this business to continue being as successful as it is.”
On Impact’s move to Pursuit:
“I would love to provide some political answer that the office would say, “Good Job, Kevin!” but I don’t know. What I do know is that if you watch the show, you’re going to enjoy it. No one is showing up and giving the bare minimum. Everyone is putting their heart and soul into this. When people show up that day to work, let me tell you, man, it is an intense environment. Not in a negative way. It is very supportive. Everyone is there to do the best job possible and I feel like a lot of that translates into the post-production of the programs. So, that is how I will answer that question. If you’re going to watch the show, you’re going to enjoy it! And, if you don’t enjoy it, you can let me know and I’ll find you and slam your head through the nearest available car windshield and then we don’t have to hear from you again!”
