WWE’s Karrion Kross Injured, Relinquishes NXT Title

Karrion Kross defeated Keith Lee to win the NXT Championship at NXT TakeOver: XXX over the weekend. However, his title reign ended before it really got started as he suffered a separated shoulder in the match, forcing him to relinquish the belt. Kross and Scarlett opened this week’s NXT show and confirmed he suffered a separated shoulder as he had his right arm in a sling. With Scarlett holding the belt, Kross put the title in the middle of the ring. At the end of his promo, Kross said he would be back to win the title again.

Kross is the second person in WWE history to relinquish the championship due to injury. In March 2019, Tommasso Ciampa was forced to drop the title due to him needing neck surgery. As for how WWE will determine a new NXT Champion, Ciampa, Johnny Gargano, Adam Cole and Finn Balor will compete in a Fatal-Four-Way Iron Man Match. All four are former NXT Champions, and the match will air on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday.

Fans first heard the news of Kross’ injury from Triple H. In a post-media conference call, Triple H revealed Kross suffered an injury, but didn’t know how bad it was. “I wish I could say, as good as he is at his job, I wish I could say that [he was just selling],” he said. “I’m going to have to find out. We’ll get him an MRI and everything,” he said on Saturday night. “Right now it looks like he separated his shoulder.”

In an interview with ESPN following TakeOver, Kross said he’ll be back sooner than later. “”From my point of view, no [I won’t be out for a significant period time. Due to] how I feel and what I’ve heard, I don’t know. I’m very intuitive with my body. And the range of emotion [sic] that I have right now, while it’s not what I would like it to be, for me personally, it would indicate to me that I’m going to get be able to get through this without any sort of extreme measures, so to speak.”