Baron Corbin talks scrapped plans for his character in WWE, including calling himself a gold medalist, a tag team with Kevin Owens, and more.
Given the live nature of WWE, creative plans are always fluid and subject to change. Throughout his seven years on the main roster, Baron Corbin has undergone numerous character changes and not all the plans that have been set in place for him have been put into motion.
In a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, Corbin opens up about some of the plans that have been discussed that, for one reason or another, never played out on television. For starters, Corbin says that Vince McMahon had an idea for Baron Corbin to call himself a gold medalist during his program with Kurt Angle. Corbin does not specify whether or not this plan was talked about before or after he defeated Kurt Angle in Angle's final match at WrestleMania 35.
"I mean, there's always plans. When I worked with Kurt Angle, Vince had these ideas of now I have the gold medal. I'm the gold medalist. It was super awesome. Then it just didn't happen, something changed, and we went in a different direction. Same with [Corbin winning the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at Wrestlemania 32]. The next week, you work with Dolph. You're new on the roster, you work with Dolph. Dolph is one of the best on the entire planet at elevating guys, and I did that, and then, 'The Lone Wolf' did well. I had Money in the Bank, was US Champion, all of those things."
Corbin also says that he believes his sad Corbin gimmick could have gone for another 6 months and that there were plans for him to team with Kevin Owens until plans changed for the French-Canadian Superstar
"There's been a few times where there's that moment and it's like, 'But how do we capitalize?' and then, you know, things change. I don't know, somebody gets hurt, I've had moments where we're supposed to have a match with somebody that's gonna lead [to something] and you know, they get dinged up and they gotta -- we got to go this way now. It kind of hurts that flow, but that's the nature of the business. That's the nature of the beast. They've got a lot of really talented writers that write these shows and maybe it's some idea that they think is better than what they had [and] we go with that. Maybe it doesn't work. Maybe it does. It's just random. I mean Sad Corbin was random. I think we could have ran that for another six months," he said. "Kevin Owens and I had a really awesome pitch to run as a tag team with Sad Corbin and they were like, 'We love it. We love it. We did it for like two weeks, and then Kevin had to go a different direction. It was turning me babyface. I think Vince didn't want to go that route yet with me. So that's why we shifted gears and switched to Happy Corman winning all my money in the casino after SummerSlam."
As for Kurt Angle, Corbin is very proud of what he was able to accomplish with Kurt and fondly recalls Angle's child giving him the middle finger after the WrestleMania match in 2019. Learn more here.
Sad Corbin also produced some awkward moments for Corbin as he was trying to enroll his child into school. You can read his stories about those days at this link.
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