Tom Pestock, formerly known as Baron Corbin, opens about the end of his time with WWE and reflects on his run in the company.
In November, Fightful reported that WWE opted not to renew Corbin’s expiring contract. He entered free agency on January 1st. Corbin had a prominent run in WWE. He won the Money in the Bank match, the King of the Ring tournament, and he also held the NXT Tag Team Championship.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Tom Pestock reflected on the end of his time in WWE and his journey in the company overall.
“I think that for me, with my contract ending in WWE, deciding not to renew, obviously that hurt and lights a fire, because I felt like in my WWE career I was in uncharted water, in a sense. I had gone to NXT, reinvented myself and put a lot of work into it, even though I didn’t agree with some of it. I had a conversation before I moved to NXT. I was sat down, I’m gonna be polite. We talked about it. Bruce Prichard, I’m gonna be polite. He was like, y’You know, it’s just not working, we want you to go down there, reinvent yourself, new moves, lose a little weight, blah, blah, blah.’ And I did and I think it was maybe not meant for me to succeed as well as I did down there. But they’ve got such an amazing system there with the talent they have, with the producers they have, and with the coaches they have and the writers, it’s impossible not to succeed down there. I think I killed it, and it couldn’t be denied.”
“I went back to the main roster and I’m a very open, truthful person. I’m not capable of lying or BS-ing about things. But when I got up there, I feel like someone was holding me down, in a sense of that wasn’t supposed to work, because I would go out and do dark matches, or when I did wrestle on TV the crowd was insane for me. It was the best reactions I’d had in years since I was the King or the Constable. When I was getting all that heat, this was the opposite. I was getting people chanting my name. There were times in matches where Apollo would be getting beat up and they’d be chanting my name, and he’d just look at me like you’re over, it would be crazy. Every night it would be crazy. My reactions, and with no ego, I say aside from maybe Cody, Randy and Kevin, were the best on the whole show every night on SmackDown. That’s doing dark matches, or doing TV, like Berlin, we did that tag match, they were insane. I would come back to the curtain and Regal would always be like, ‘This is amazing, the work is awesome.’ They love you. Road Dogg would be like, ‘Corbin you’re over in this town.’ I’m like, ‘It’s every town, dude, it’s not just a one off.’
“Even one of the writers we were talking about turning me heel and I’m like, I don’t know, man, we’ve never done this babyface. They wanted me to be different, what do we have? Then we went out there, I don’t remember what city it was, Arkansas, or somewhere, and it was crazy. They blew the roof off for me, chanting my name in the match when I wasn’t even in the match, standing on the apron or whatever, cheering for everything. I walk back and it’s the head writer Smackdown. He goes, I told him that you should just walk back here and give us both the finger and walk off, because the reaction was so good. So I think that that was frustrating. I’m like, man, there’s still something there maybe unresolved that I could get back and accomplish as that babyface with the cheering. I think it made me hungrier to succeed being told, Oh man, we’re just going to go a different direction after already being told hey, we want to go change everything and you do it and it’s successful.”
Baron Corbin Did What He Was Asked To Do
Pestock also looked back on some parts of his career that could have worked better. He brought up his pairing with JBL as an example. He stated that he did everything he was asked to do. Pestock stated that he felt like there was one person to blame for his departure, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
“I’m very self aware at the same time, there were times with the JBL stuff I think it could have worked if we’d done it differently, which we’d pitch several ideas. JBL is the man, he’s unbelievable. He sent in amazing pitches and they just died in the wind somewhere. But I’d stand out there and go you could feel it’s not working. I’m not getting the reactions I want or anything like that, to where six months ago, I’m telling you, the reactions were everything was there. It was firing on all cylinders. I recreated everything like I was asked to do. I’ve always done everything that I’ve been asked to do, and then to be like we’re gonna go in a different direction. What? That was frustrating because there’s nothing you can do at the end of the day. I was talking to Randy about it, a lot of guys reached out, you know, I’m sorry, guys you expect like Seth and Finn and Kevin and those dudes are amazing people, and Punk and Randy.
“But Randy’s like Dude, I honestly thought you were gonna be here another 10 years? I don’t understand it. He’s like, do you mind if I talk to Hunter about it? I don’t know if he ever did, but he’s like somebody doesn’t like you. I’m like, There’s nothing I can do to change that. I feel like I know who it is, and that’s besides the point. But they had power enough to either kill creative or whatever it is, and they got to go to bed with that at the end of the night. That’s on them. But for 13 years I made this entity that is me and is Tom Pestock, and I think it’s going to help continue to push me and again, I wouldn’t have had that without WWE.”
Baron Corbin On His WWE Exit
During the interview, Pestock also looked back on the end of his time in WWE and noted that he wished he had more of an opportunity with his babyface run. He reiterated that he did everything he was asked to do.
“I wish it hadn’t ended like it did,” he said. “I wish I had more opportunity to continue with this babyface thing. Nobody wants it to end. Any job, it’s not fun. But it’s also exciting at the same time, because now I can literally do whatever. I can try to create something new. I can go in different directions. I think the most frustrating part for me is not understanding why there’s an ulterior motive there. Because, again, I’ve been a company guy through and through. I’ve never said no to doing something. I’ve made everything work that I’ve been given, not complained, have never once complained online. You can send me to talk to ESPN. You can send me to talk to boys and girls club.
“I fit the mould of a professional. I dress professional. I show up professional. I don’t miss shows. 13 years never once missed a show or training or anything because of injury or being sick. Not once, not even COVID. I was a hero during COVID in my opinion, I was on every show. Sometimes both shows, I’ve been a team player through and through and I think maybe in the end it hurt me a little bit always being the guy that’s like, yeah, no problem. Oh, you need Finn Balor the demon to beat me up in three minutes at SummerSlam? Okay, no problem, cool. So it was a weird place to be, but I think now, again that moment yesterday, standing in between the two buildings, it’s pretty cool to go yeah man, I was here, now I’m here. How do we get back to there? Not necessarily WWE, but that level of accomplishment.”
Baron Corbin On Reaction To His WWE Exit
Pestock then noted that he was shocked by his release. He said that he was grateful for every opportunity that he had, and he would not let one person control his emotions. Pestock again looked back on what he could have done differently and said there was no right path to find all of the success that you want.
“People were shocked. I was shocked,” he said. “I could weirdly, kind of, you know when your gut instinct tells you something, and like I said, I think there was one person in particular that I think was behind all of it, and it sucks, but it is what [it is]. I’m not gonna cry over it because I’m grateful for everything I had there and every opportunity that I had there, I can’t let one person put me in a bad place. I’m not gonna let one person control my emotions. I mean the fact that Randy Orton’s calling me, going there’s someone that doesn’t like you. Again, I know who it is. I told him and he’s like yeah, probably right. But when you have someone of that magnitude being like I want to talk to Hunter, it makes you feel good, because, you know, a lot of other people see the flip side of it. They’re like, Oh man, no, he’s really good. I don’t why no one can do what I do in a sense of going out and make people believe in the authenticity of what I’m doing.
“Whether it’s Happy Corbin, Sad Corbin, Wolf Dogs, or the new stuff I was doing with burn the ships and just being myself, people believed it. And then also too I could make people believe. I got beat 10 million times, but people were still booing me and still having fun. When I would work with different babyfaces again, when I would lose every single week they still bought that there was a chance I was going to win, a chance that I would screw this guy over and that’s a special talent to have, and also to do it without complaining. There’s a lot of guys that walk around boo-boo facing when they’re not getting the win or whatever it is. I just did my job, and I was happy to do it. When I look back, we were talking earlier, maybe I should have been a little more selfish with what I did. It could have hurt me, and I could have been done three or four years ago, you never know, or it could have helped me, because there are some guys that are that way, and you see it benefit some and doesn’t benefit the others. I don’t know. There’s no right path to take to find all the success that you want.”
on his time in WWE
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Thanks to Chris Van Vliet and his team for sharing these quotes.
