Killer Kross has watched wrestling programming increasingly get eaten up by commercial breaks and sponsorships, and he isn’t a fan of what that’s doing to the actual product.
Speaking with 11Alive when asked who he sees as wrestling’s future, Kross argued that television programming tends to reflect broader society, and he doesn’t know exactly what that future looks like.
A lot of what we see in the programming is a reflection of society. To say who can carry it in the future, I don’t know what the future is going to look like.
But he was direct about his frustration with the current direction: specifically, how much time modern wrestling shows carve out of the actual matches and storytelling in favor of advertising.
The MLW World Champion compared it to going to the theater expecting to be immersed in a performance, only to have that immersion constantly interrupted, even dropping commercials directly after matches conclude.
So far, I actually don’t like the direction that wrestling is going in with cutting down so much time in the program away from the actual wrestling and stories. If you go to theater, you want to watch the show and be immersed in it. Constantly blasting you with advertisements; even after a match, they’re dropping commercials.
Kross acknowledged the business reality behind the trend, saying he understands revenue has to come from somewhere. Even so, he doesn’t like seeing wrestling airtime treated the same way real estate is treated as space to be sold off for other purposes rather than protected for the wrestling itself.
I don’t like that. I understand there is revenue to be generated, but treating the airtime for wrestling like it’s real estate time for other stuff to generate revenue, I understand the business practice of it, but I don’t like it. When you ask who is going to lead us into that, it could be anybody; what does it matter?
As for who might lead wrestling into its next era, Kross was less concerned with any specific name and more focused on substance, saying that whoever it ends up being matters less than whether the product stays rooted in genuine, pure professional wrestling.
If it’s pure pro wrestling, the pure pro wrestlers will be able to do that.
