At this year’s WWE Money in the Bank pay-per-view, Baron Corbin won the ladder match by grabbing the briefcase, which made him the automatic number one contender for the WWE Championship for up to a year. After leveraging the case to gain a bit more heat, using the fact that he did not have to face John Cena to earn more credibility as a SmackDown Live star, eventually his exchanges with Cena led to a match at SummerSlam.
The widespread rumor was that Shinsuke Nakamura was going to win the WWE Championship, and Corbin was going to subsequently cash-in his briefcase and win the title. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the plan was to groom Corbin to become champion by at least later this year. However, these plans were abruptly changed when Corbin became only the third person in the history of the Money in the Bank series to unsuccessfully cash-in his case, when he made the attempt on Smackdown Live last week.
Many were pondering why Corbin lost the case in that manner, since there were plans to have him become champion. According to the Live Audio Wrestling post-SummerSlam podcast, Dave Meltzer speculated that Corbin lost the case due to the heat that he has drawn recently backstage.
Over the past couple of weeks, Corbin has been involved in Twitter wars with many users, including WWE SmackDown Live competitor Mojo Rawley. He also had an exchange with a military veteran, but later apologized. Meltzer stated that, although he also had a Twitter war with Corbin, their exchanges is the least of Corbin’s worries.
As we saw by the match on SummerSlam with John Cena, it appears as if the Corbin ship has sailed.
