Karrion Kross defends his title against Adam Cole, Pete Dunne, Kyle O’Reilly and Johnny Gargano in a Fatal 5-Way Match at Sunday’s NXT TakeOver: In Your House special.
Cole spoke in kayfabe about Kross’ rise in NXT and the push the company gave him thus far during an appearance on WWE’s The Bump.
“I do think Kross is pretty good. If he was terrible, he wouldn’t be the NXT Champion,” Cole mentioned. “However, I do think he has been given every single platform to succeed. Again, that’s what I meant by the cool music, the girl, and the awesome lights and the smoke machine. NXT has done everything to make Kross feel like one in a million and as special as possible. The problem is when the bell rings, he could never touch somebody like me.
“I had to start from the ground up and work my way to become the longest-reigning NXT Champion of all time. A guy like Adam Cole shouldn’t, on paper, be someone who is the NXT Champion for 403 days, but I was. I let every single scenario I’ve been in and every opportunity I got, I knocked it out of the park, and I exceeded expectations.”
