8 Wrestling Game-Changers Who Became JOBBERS!
6. Karrion Kross
It was tough to assess what game there was to change in 2020 NXT.
The black-and-gold brand had been made redundant by the very existence of All Elite Wrestling in 2019, and not just because WWE positioned it to go head to head with it in a ratings war designed to divide the conversation rather than allowing a new challenger brand a chance to breathe. The magic of the original creative boom for the show half a decade earlier was that it only felt like the beginning for the rising stars. They were building beloved personas and crafting great matches, but the more that went to the main roster to die, the more the project felt futile.
The pandemic only brought this more into focus when, with even less buzz to generate on Raw or SmackDown, the next class of NXT undergrads found themselves working as audience members for the stars happy to hang out in Florida. Karrion Kross' initial roll-out felt like one last enormous swing by Triple H to help his dying brand find its fire. And not in the way Keith Lee did when he opened Scarlett's cursed contract in a comically poor segment to build the big NXT Championship match between the two men at the next TakeOver. Kross won the belt and the match - just his sixth on the show - and even though he got injured, as a statement of intent it couldn't have been clearer. He resumed his dominance returning in early 2021, but the main roster machine was still waiting for new pet projects to eviscerate.
Kross' initial TV appearance on Main Event (!) in June, stripped of Scarlett and the bells and whistles that came with their presentation, was awkward. His Raw debut proper was an unmitigated disaster. Losing to Jeff Hardy in 100 seconds while still NXT Champion, he was earmarked to a brand new audience as a flop, bringing a degree of shame to the smaller-stage crowd that still backed him. He was dethroned by Samoa Joe a few weeks later to permanently confirm his call-up, but the damage had been done. Ironically, he only lost once more after that, but mainly because the run amounted to just 11 matches. Doomed, he was let go in November 2021, and it's little wonder he became a cult favourite during his far superior 2022-2025 return stint.