Long before Karrion Kross reigned supreme, he was a mysterious newcomer on the black-and-gold brand. In his first major match as an NXT Superstar, he dominated former champion Tommaso Ciampa at NXT TakeOver: In Your House 2020.
But in an interview with Rick Ucchino of Sportskeeda Wrestling, Ciampa argued that Kross caught him in the middle of a relative slump, and the result would be quite different if they clashed again.
“I think I’m better than him, I’ll say that,” said Ciampa. ” And it’s hard to say that, I guess, when he beat me in under six minutes. I think he beat me at a time where I don’t want to say I was easy to beat, but I wasn’t at the top of my game. I came back from the neck surgery, I chased after Goldie, Adam Cole beat me with Johnny Gargano’s assistance, Johnny Gargano beat me with Candice’s assistance, and I just think I needed a break. And Kross, it just linked up just right for him.
“And over the last year and a half, I’m sure he’s developed. I’ve watched, he’s had some good showings but I’m back to being me. And I think if the time ever does come where we step in the ring together again and it’s Karrion Kross vs. The Blackheart, The Psycho Killer, it’ll be different.”
While Ciampa is clearly interested facing Kross again, he remains focused on the NXT Tag Team Championship. In the interview, he looked past NXT Great American Bash and expressed his goal to prove that his team with Timothy Thatcher is unmatched. He made it clear that he’s enjoying his pairing with Thatcher so much that he has reconsidered the time frame of his quest to recapture the NXT Championship.
“If you asked me six months ago before this Timmy thing, I think I’d have a different answer,” said Ciampa. “But sometimes you just have to play the cards you’re dealt, and Timmy and I are enjoying what we’re being dealt right now. That’s not to say that I value the tag team titles more than the NXT title, but I also know that there’s not a time frame on this. My career’s not ending in the next six months or year or two years. So I really, really, really enjoy what we’re doing.”
“[After NXT Great American Bash,] it gets fun because then it becomes, ‘Well how far can they push this?’ We did it with GVY, we pulled a great match out of Legado, we had a really good one with Undisputed Era, now we have MSK. There’s so many tag teams to go, Imperium is still out there. There’s a lot of good tag teams, not just in NXT but even when I look around at RAW and SmackDown and NXT UK, there’s just a lot of people I’d like to get in there with, with Timmy by my side, and prove we’re the best tag team there is.”
The full video is available here:
