While sitting backstage around 18 months ago, Kross recalls Heyman asking him about his potential to successfully entertain the audience, even if it came after even more months of inactivity. Kross then indicated that he could, to which Heyman agreed.

“[Heyman] said, ‘Good. Don’t ever let the time you’re spending off TV rattle you because you know what you’re doing,'” Kross said. “I can verbatim repeat that because that was a conversation that has lived in my head to now. It solidified my confidence in what I was doing. I had never ever had it before. Once you know what you’re doing, you’re certain you know what you’re doing, and you’ve demonstrated that you know what you’re doing, there’s your relationship that you can have with your people. You just can’t doubt it. You can’t let things get between those ideas. Maybe that was a year and a half ago. Fast forward to now, here we are. He was right.”

Kross’ latest match took place on night one of WWE SummerSlam, where he lost to former WWE Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn. Days later, the WWE contracts of Kross and Scarlett expired, with only the former receiving an offer for a new one beforehand. Before potentially accepting his offer, Kross said he wanted more information from WWE about the analytics behind it. WWE, however, apparently did not provide him with such and rescinded their contract offer 24 hours later, now making both Kross and Scarlett free agents.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “The Ariel Helwani Show” with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.