Ranking 22 WWE Debuts And Returns In 2021
19. Karrion Kross
Another of the “Welcome to the main roster/fare thee well”
crowd, Karrion Kross was the reigning NXT Champion when he was called up to Raw
earlier this year. That should have boded well for him… but it was quite
the opposite.
First, they called Kross up by himself, and not with his fiancée/valet Scarlett. Then they stripped his elaborate entrance down to a bare minimum, thus reducing a ton of the allure that made him special. And then, they had him lose he debut match to Jeff Hardy in less than three minutes.
It didn’t get much better for Karrion, as he went 50/50 with Hardy and went 50/50 with Keith Lee before finally starting to win more consistently. But the damage was already done -- he was also now inexplicably wearing a comically bad helmet/mask deal and crisscrossed straps that more resembled suspenders than anything else. Kross disappeared from the ring and started appearing in vignettes backstage, cutting promos in a suit as a devil’s advocate of sorts, a play on Sean O’Haire’s old gimmick from 15+ years ago.
The only reason Kross, who was treated as absolute crap on the main roster, ranked this high on this list is because WWE at least tried to repackage him and salvage him before cutting him loose – they didn’t even bother with the acts below him.