Karrion Kross showed up on RAW after he lost the NXT Title and he had different look. WWE covered him up in a gladiator look and it appears that they plan on merchandising that getup to the best of their ability. The idea might have been a recycled concept from years ago.
While speaking to Chair Shots to the Cranium podcast, Erick Rowan revealed that WWE’s original mock-up designs for the Bludgeon Brothers’ original concept art might have been the inspiration for Karrion Kross’ new gear. After all, he can see a few similarities.
“I remember the first pitch meeting for they showed us pictures of what they wanted The Bludgeon Brothers to look like and it was literally like I think it’s almost exactly what Karrion Kross is wearing now where it’s like the Demolition leather-like straps [that] look like suspenders around here. He will he wrestle and we both looked at each other, like new. I think that’s when, you know, I had a few friends said design some things Candela Jason Baker and I kind of had them help put together a look based on like, Norse mythology and different things, just to make it more us and, you know, and help with the math, the masks and stuff like that. So it just all came together because you know, we just didn’t say yes. But what one thing they made us do was they wanted us to have these mallets and nobody wants to just walk out with these crazy-looking mallets but luckily, my buddy Jason Baker put together these really badass-looking hammers with North runes with their kids’ names carved into them. So they were pretty badass. It was pretty cool. People always thought they looked fake, but they were like 25 pounds of solid wood. We could swing them like a baseball bat and they weren’t padded.”
We haven’t seen those original Bludgeon Brothers designs, but it’s also easy to picture Vince McMahon going back to an older idea if he wanted to capitalize on the marketing potential. Only time will tell how long Karrion Kross keeps his new look, but he doesn’t show any signs of dropping the gear.