Karrion Kross Reveals WWE’s Original Plan for Final Testament

Karrion Kross recently shed light on the formation of his new WWE faction, The Final Testament, during an interview on Insight with Chris Van Vliet. The group, consisting of Kross, Scarlett, The Authors of Pain (Akam & Rezar), and Paul Ellering, began making waves in January after vignettes teased their arrival.

“For quite some time, I had several people in creative tell me there was an idea being entertained of me leading a group,” Kross revealed. “They had a bunch of people they were interested in putting together with us. I had a certain set of people I was interested in bringing in… but someone mentioned to me that AOP was on the roster with Paul Ellering. I was like, ‘Wait, what? Since when?’ Apparently, they had been there for a while and were looking for the right time to bring them into the fold.”

Once Kross learned of AOP’s availability, the group met at WWE’s Performance Center and began developing the cryptic vignettes that would introduce The Final Testament to fans. “We started shooting these propaganda-style videos, almost like Iron Man 3 with The Mandarin. Ben Kingsley said, ‘They’ll never see me coming.’ That was the vibe we wanted—mysterious and unsettling.”

Initially, the concept for the group leaned into a militia-cult theme, but Kross was adamant about not falling into overused wrestling tropes. “There’s nothing wrong with reoccurring archetypes in wrestling or film, but I wanted to give fans something fresh, with nostalgic callbacks,” Kross explained. “We’ve gone in different directions since then.”

WWE briefly considered taking The Final Testament in a mixed martial arts direction, an idea Kross ultimately pushed back on. “They were like, ‘We kind of want you to be a mixed martial arts group,’ and I was like, ‘That’s not a good idea,’” Kross said. He noted that MMA-style wrestling works best in longer matches but would feel awkward in WWE’s fast-paced show format. “What am I going to do? Put on a kneebar for three seconds? All of us can do that stuff, but leaning more into the character side felt like the better approach.”

Meanwhile, AOP will face The New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods in a high-stakes match on Monday’s WWE Raw, promising to add more momentum to The Final Testament.