Tom Pestock, formerly known as Baron Corbin in WWE, appeared on Insight With Chris Van Vliet to discuss various aspects of his WWE career, including his frustrations with creative direction and his belief that someone within the company deliberately worked against him.
Pestock detailed how, despite following instructions to reinvent himself in NXT, including changing his moveset and physical appearance, his efforts didn’t translate into sustained success on the main roster. He recalled being told by Bruce Prichard that he needed to “reinvent” himself, which led to his successful run in NXT, where he received strong reactions from fans and praise from coaches like William Regal and producers such as Road Dogg.
However, when he returned to the main roster, he felt like his momentum was intentionally stifled. Pestock said:
“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 with NXT. I was sat down, and I’m gonna be polite. We talked about it walking in. Bruce Prichard, I’m gonna be polite. He was like, 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 not—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, like impossible. And 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, you know, BSing about things, but when I got up there, I feel like someone was holding me down in the sense of like that wasn’t supposed to work. 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. He’s 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, and that’s doing dark matches or doing TV. Like in Berlin, we did that tag match, and they were insane. And I would come back to the curtain, and Regal would always be like, ‘This is amazing. Like, the work is awesome. They love you.’ Road Dogg would be like, ‘Corbin, you’re over in this town.’ And I’d be like, ‘It’s every town, dude. Like, it’s not just, like, a one-off.’
Even one of the writers was like, ‘We want to change you to a heel.’ I told him, ‘I don’t know, man. We’ve never done this babyface run before.’ And then we went out there, and 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. I was standing on the apron or whatever. Cheer for everything. And I walked back, and Chad’s like, ‘I told him,’ to the head writer of SmackDown. He goes, ‘I told him you should just walk back here and give us both the finger and walk off because the reaction was so good.’ And I was like, ‘It’s not just one town. It’s every town.’
But I think that was frustrating because I feel like there’s still something unresolved. Maybe I could have gotten back to accomplish as that babyface with the cheering. And it made me hungrier to succeed after being told, ‘Ah, man, we’re gonna go in a different direction,’ after already being told, ‘Hey, we want to go change everything,’ and I did it successfully.
I think JBL is the man—he’s unbelievable—but the JBL stuff could have worked if we had done it differently, which we pitched several ideas. JBL sent in amazing pitches, and they just died in the wind somewhere. But I’d stand out there and go, ‘Man, you could feel it’s not working. I’m not getting the reactions I want.’ Six months ago, I was firing on all cylinders. I recreated everything like I was asked to do, and then to be like, ‘We’re gonna go in a different direction.’ 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. And guys you expect, like Seth and Finn and Kevin—those dudes are amazing people. And, you know, Punk and Randy. But Randy’s like, ‘Dude, I honestly thought you were gonna be here another 10 years.’ He’s like, ‘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.’ And I’m like, ‘There’s nothing I can do to change that.’ I feel like I know who it is, but they had power enough to either kill creative or whatever it was, and they’ve got to go to bed with that at the end of the night. That’s on them.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
