Baron Corbin On His WWE Exit, New In-Ring Name, AEW, TNA, New Japan, What's Next

On his GCW appearance:

"I put in 13 years with WWE, and that was my first ever in-ring experience was WWE. Most guys come from the independent world or whatever. There's a few of us that skip that whole process, more so now too with all of the NIL and bring in athletes from college so you don't kind of get that taste of the other side, if you will. Gable [Steveson] is another guy who came from Olympic wrestling, and all these people love wrestling, but it's a different world out there. I now know and can say that I actually know working an independent show."

On his Bloodsport match against Josh Barnett:

"I was so nervous going into it. I mean, you always get good nervous when you're doing a show, especially massive arenas in front of lots of people, big matches. But it was a different nervous for me because I had no idea how they were going to react to me. Also, GCW is known for its crazy matches and wild bumps that guys are taking, and we're going to put on a Bloodsport match, which is we're grappling, we're hitting each other a lot harder than we would if it was not a Bloodsport match. I was like, man, how's the audience going to take to this style match? I was worried. If I planned a match or put something together that had a lot of like the jiu-jitsu grappling and all of that in a WWE ring it just doesn't translate as well. I think especially with the audience being families and kids they would get bored very quickly of watching, the same reason a lot of kids don't watch UFC, if you will, because they don't understand the grappling, the technique, and it's chess, not checkers, they're trying to set things up, and sometimes it takes a minute or a minute and a half to set up a triangle or an arm bar. So going in front of that crowd that I know is rowdy and I'm going, man, how are they going to react to not hearing Baron Corbin? How are they going to react to hearing Tom Pestock? Are they just going to chant Corbin or are they going to boo me out of this building? I had zero insight into what was going to happen. It was very surreal. It ended up getting some pretty cool chants."

On what he wants to do now he is no longer with WWE:

"I mean, a lot of things. I'm always a guy who's got multiple things in the fire, always was with WWE. I was doing food stuff on my social media, or I started a coffee company and was doing the coffee company, and then all the family stuff and like that. But now I'm gonna have an opportunity where I don't have to ask permission to do something. I've also been smart with all of my money that I've made over the years with WWE because I've watched how quickly it can end. When I left the NFL it's like no more paychecks, and you go oh man, it ends that quick. I was playing ping pong, and now I don't have a job, it's crazy. So I put myself in a position now that I can literally just do the things I want to do. I don't have to do things because I have to do them and I think that's a really freeing thought process. So I can take risks, I want to do movies, I want to do TV shows, and I want to do horror movies or thriller movies or darker action kind of films, anything in that world. Whether it's television, it's Netflix, it's Hulu, or it's the B rate horror movies that are amazing, just like guilty pleasures, I love them, that's the world I want to dive into. It's risky, it's scary, and a lot of people don't make it. But how many things have I already accomplished that a lot of people don't? NFL, 1% of college players make it to the NFL. Made it to WWE, made it to the top of the roster, main eventing around the world. All of those things. How many people get that opportunity? Talking to The Usos one time, and they'd never had a singles match at Mania, and they've been in the WWE longer than I have, and I'd had three at that time. I had Ambrose, I had Kurt Angle and Drew McIntyre, and it was like, whoa, it's crazy to think that."

"So I think that if I go after that, it's something I can accomplish. You need a little bit of luck, a little bit of opportunity, stages like this. Coming here and talking with you, maybe somebody hears this, and it's like oh man, he'd be perfect for this. Or I know somebody here, it's a lot of connections, as you know, to get into that world. I signed with CAA, with Ross and he's going to do an amazing job with helping me get some opportunities and it's up to me now. I control everything that happens right now. I can take independent shows that I want to take, like GCW, I would definitely go back. It was so fun. That crowd was amazing, energetic, passionate, and that show was five hours last night because unfortunately one of the girls broke her ankle in the second match, and with the New York commission it kind of put a hold on the show for like 40 minutes. It was like, how do we restructure to try to get the crowd back and all those things after this long intermission, and they were just as passionate when we got back to work as they were when they started. I want to go to Japan. I want to wrestle in Japan. I've wrestled there quite a few times at WWE, but never at that New Japan company. That's something that AJ [Styles] and Finn [Balor] and [Luke] Gallows and [Karl] Anderson and Shinsuke [Nakamura] and all those guys. They did that. I never got to do it before WWE like they did. So I'm like, man, let's go do it now. I love it over there. I love the culture. I love the history of the wrestling business over there, so many stars, so many traditions. I think it's so cool. So I want to go there and do that. I want to go to Food Network do some food stuff. I'm going to go to Miami in like four weeks for the Miami Food Festival to meet some of the people, go eat with Michael Simon, and I'm going to do some Guy Fieri stuff. I had a friend reach out about potentially doing Beat Bobby Flay, not as a competitor, but as a host like that would be amazing. I want to win some more gold medals in Jiu Jitsu, like I got my purple belt two weeks ago after our professor tried to kill us with eight minute rounds, we basically went like 104 minutes, or something like that. 106 minutes, whatever it is, straight just beating the crap out of each other. So I'm gonna do a couple more tournaments there like the Pan Am games. I'm just kind of flooring it in all of these different avenues."

On possibly signing with TNA or AEW or New Japan:

"I would love to go to New Japan for multiple reasons, and the door never closes with WWE either. And as far as AEW, their fans, they like that AEW in a sense is its own entity and built from the ground up. If I went there out of respect for that world, I wouldn't want to be just another WWE guy that came there because they left WWE. I would rather go and do New Japan for a year or more, who knows? Maybe that's where I just love it and I stay there for the rest of my wrestling career. So if I ever did go that route, I would want to kind of clear that oh he's just a WWE guy coming over. Baron Corbin is dead as far as we know, we're dropping new name, new moniker, new character. I love wrestling. I love the creativeness of it. I love the freedom. I love performing in front of an audience and getting that live feedback in the moment. There's nothing better." 

On his time in WWE:

"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." 

"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." 

On his WWE exit:

"I wish it hadn't ended like it did. 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."

On fans being shocked that he exited WWE:

"It was two and a half million views on my tweet alone. People were shocked. I was shocked. 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 wondering when his moment would come:

"100%, that's why I was there. I wanted to be World Champion. I wanted to have that accolade on me for the rest of my life. That's a cool thing to tell people when you're 60 or tell my kids I was a World Champion in WWE, here's a picture of it. Whether it was a day run like Kane had or whatever, I wanted that moment and I did it for a lot of people. I built Braun to go. I mean, not that these people needed building, but I worked with these guys. Braun went on and then he won the title from Bray Wyatt. Seth Rollins, I worked with him, he went to SummerSlam with Brock Lesnar. Roman Reigns did that. He went to WrestleMania. I'm not getting those big moments, but I had a lot of great, big [moments]. There were so many." 

On if he will still wrestle as Tom Pestock:

"I'm letting it out right now. Because I got to do me at the end of the day still. I've talked to you about I want to go here, I want to go here, I want to go here. I want to go to New Japan. TNA has called, so maybe there's something there. Maybe NWA, I'm open to it all because I love wrestling, and if I can go somewhere and be in front of fans, I'm going to go like, it's just I know that I don't want to sign a contract right now, because I like this ability. So I'm going with "The Nomad" Bishop Dyer, I'm gonna be The Nomad. I'm gonna roam and I'm gonna go to all these. Change a little bit, because it kind of pays tribute to The Lone Wolf, Dire Wolf, and then a bishop is higher than a baron, so we're going up. The rankings are going up. So it's getting trademarked. So don't even try it suckers, getting trademarked right now. But I think it's just a powerful name, it's a cool name, and I want to be The Nomad. I'm gonna float and see where the wrestling world takes me in that sense."

On WWE plans suddenly changing:

"So many instances of that in my career, and you kind of lose faith in a sense of, this is the plan, this is where we're going and then it changes six hours later."

What was the original Money in the Bank plan?

"I think Vince saw me becoming World Champion, and I think that winning that he's like, you're going to hold it for a while. Because I think Jinder being champ also played a part of not only him doing his thing because he's an incredible performer, but also they were trying to get a certain demographic of an audience, that helped, and they had no intentions of changing that title at that time. So it was to carry it, and it was eventually to take it off of Jinder. But obviously it did not come to fruition." 

On Sad Corbin:

"I had a lady in Houston too. I was leaving the building, I'm driving up the rampway, and I had a lady trying to shove a $20 bill in my window. And I was like, I should have done the D-Von and passed the hat, I probably could have retired three years ago. [D-Von kept all that money]. I would have too. Why would you not? I mean, I'm walking to the ring. I probably could have made 1000 bucks a night, for sure. And if I pass the hat in the stadium."

On feeling disrespected:

"I was sitting with the head writer of SmackDown, and it still just kind of makes my blood boil, because it doesn't pertain just to me. But I was just like 'Hey, do we have any ideas? What are you thinking creatively?' He's like, 'Well we got we got Jacob up and running, so we're gonna need bodies for him.' I was like we're not bodies dude. Nobody on this roster is just a body. That was so frustrating to hear. Like I said, it doesn't pertain to me, but it just goes, this is what you think of [us]. I've been here at this point 12 years and I'm a body for somebody else? Dude, if you want to say something like that go 'Hey man, we think you'd be great, because you could help build Jacob, you could make him look like a monster.' Dope, let's go. But we're gonna need bodies? He's referring to the bottom half of the roster. When you say that it's so disrespectful to say that about people who go out there and put their life on the line every night, because careers can be ended in an instant. I mean, look at Big E, one suplex wrong and he may never wrestle again, it can end like that, or you can end up a quadriplegic. All of these things could happen. It's your livelihood. It's how you put food on the table.

I'm so gracious to have such a long career that I don't have to worry about that. But if you're three years in and you're just a body, and you're disregarded as not even a human being, in a sense, come on dude. It takes everybody, guys who are there to be extras, they're just as important as talent in a sense, because without those guys doing that, we don't have major superstars. You need guys that can do that and do it well. I think that that's harder sometimes than being the top guy when everything is fed to you, you're given every opportunity, you're built on this pedestal. When you're all the dudes clawing at the bottom to try to get there, it's way harder to be down there and survive and be happy and successful than it is to be this is our guy, we wrote his name right there, so everything else funnels to him. That's easy to be up there. It's the only hard part is the amount of time it takes. When you're put on a pedestal, it's much easier than being guys fighting for those two three minutes on a show and then to refer to him as bodies. I said something, and he was like, 'I didn't think about how I said it that way.' But I was just like, This is why it's good that I'm going away for a little while regardless.

On a funny John Cena story from his time in WWE:

"I will start with the backstory of it. So when Nexus was up on television Bray Wyatt was not Bray Wyatt. He was Husky Harris, we're going back here. There is a rumour that I believe is 100% true that Husky poked John Cena in the eye in a match, and Vince was so mad, Cena was so mad that they sent Husky Harris back to NXT. We're all grateful for that because Bray Wyatt was born. So this story of I'm gonna tease Randy, because Randy's a buddy of mine, but you're always taught don't hit Randy, he doesn't like to be touched. Everybody's kind of scared to work with Randy. It's not like that, Randy's tough. Sometimes he's a baby. Sometimes Randy, I know you're listening, you're kind of a baby. Love you. So this whole rumour of Cena has been poked in the eye a couple of times and it sent Bray back to NXT for two and a half years, this was a massive punishment for that. So fast forward to this six man, and I'd only been on the main roster [a short amount of time]. I still had hair, we're going way back. Still had the long, beautiful locks."

"It's the beginning of the match, the match starts, this is my first big match. We got a lot of crazy spots. There's a lot of cool stuff. I'm supposed to attack Cena. So I drive Cena to the corner, put him in the corner, and I wind back to throw a body shot, and my thumb lands about knuckle deep in his eye, and I'm like oh no! And he starts cussing 'You motherf*cker,!' He's dropping F-bombs, like we're talking first 20 rows are hearing this he's going, 'You motherf*cker! You poked me in the motherf*cking eye, What the f*ck!?' I mean, he's laying it in on me. I've got my back to him at this point and I'm hearing all of this, I'm literally about to start crying, because I'm like I'm finally on the main roster. I'm up here, now I'm going back to NXT! Because this whole thing of Bray poking him in the eye I'm going dude, I'm going back to NXT. Without a doubt, I'm so screwed. I don't want to go back to NXT. I'm so sad but I know I have to turn around to John for the next spot, and he's still mother-effing me up and down. And I was just like, can we rewind life like five minutes? Let me start over, all of these things, and then we're on live television, and these are all going through my head. The audience is even like, I can see in their eyes, they're like John Cena is cussing, he's going ape sh*t on Corbin. Finally I have to turn around because this is the time, I'm delaying this as long as I can possibly turn. I turn and John punches me dead in the face. It was a solid potato. I wore it, and I was like cool. Then for the rest of the match I'm trying to remember these spots, but I'm trying not to cry, because I'm like I'm going back to NXT. I just got out of there, just the range of emotions I'm going through for the rest of that match. I'm just like, dude. I've walked through the curtain so dejected, and they're like, that was amazing. And I'm just head down in the corner like it's over for me, man." 

"John comes back, and I just look at him, puppy dog eyes. He's like, 'Hey, that was great.' I go, 'John I am so sorry.' He goes, 'Oh, we're good. I gave you it back. We're good.' And I was like, Wait, this is gotta be at work. He's lying to me. I'm gonna walk out this curtain and they're gonna like, we need you to get your bags. You're going back to NXT. But that was the end of it. I was good. But, like, I legit thought my life was over. I was like, This is it? Because I poked John Cena in the eye and he mother effed me up and down. The whole match I'm panicking trying to remember stuff. And I walked through the curtain, he's like, Oh no, we're good." 

On his comments about wrestler contracts:

"I'm not saying that one side or the other side is correct. I'm just saying simply that's how they work. I've signed NFL contracts. I've signed five WWE contracts. It's the nature of the beast and it's the same in any industry. They may not be the greatest contracts when you start out, they are unfair. You're fighting an uphill battle sometimes in a contract. The music industry, 50% of your money is gone like that, it's a contract, but you're a band, you're trying to make it. You got to do it, you got to sign the paper, and you got to get through it, and then you can kind of start to negotiate terms. It's just one of those things. They're there to protect both sides. Usually they benefit the person giving the contract a little bit more than they do the other side." 

"But at the end of the day, those people arguing over contracts, number one, everybody that's commenting on social media, including myself, we don't know the inside thing that's going on. There could be bad blood there. There could be things one side said to the other. Nobody has a clue except for those people in that small circle. So you can't say one person is right, one person is wrong, because nobody actually knows the answer to that question. But what I do know is how contracts work and how unfair they may be. No one is forcing you to sign it. Every contract that's ever been put in front of me, you've never been forced to sign."

"I've been in some sticky situations where I was supposed to sign a new five-year deal, and I've been pushing off because I was not agreeing to the money that WWE was offering. I felt like my value was higher. Then I was approached at WrestleMania before my match with Kurt, and they're like hey we need you to sign this deal. I went and had a conversation, and I ended up signing the deal, but I was like, Hey man, can we reevaluate this in a year? It was one of those things and Hunter said it to me, and I fully get what Hunter said to me, but when I was asking for more money, because it was my second contract. I'd finished my first, I didn't ask to renegotiate. I was out earning my downside. I was happy, and then my next offer was lower than I wanted. Hunter had a conversation with me and he said, look you can out earn this. I'm going, yeah if I'm booked correctly and on pay-per-views and all things that are out of my control. I can't control who you pencil in for these things. I can do my best, because look at where I'm at now, if you went based on reaction, I would have been in that upper, not the tip top, but I would have been in that next level of guys based on reactions and based on people cheering for me, and based on what I was putting out as a product. I should have been on some of those pay-per-views, but I wasn't, it's not in my control." 

"I was barely on TV coming back up after the draft. I deserved to be on TV, and I deserved to be working in programs. They threw me and Apollo together, and it started to really work, and I thought we had something special. Apollo was showing out and he's still crushing it, so happy for him. He's getting a lot of TV time right now, but those are things are out of my control. So you're telling me I can out-earn this downside but I can only do that if I'm booked this way. Because I'm a heel number one, so I'm not slinging merch, and I'm not getting asked to do the Snickers commercials, because the second my music hits it's guttural boos throughout every arena in the country and world. So I'm not getting all those little things that good guys get, those those monetizing opportunities. So I feel like my worth is higher than this. He said, we also had to figure out and make sure you're not a flash in the pan. He's like, Yeah, you're hot right now. But what's six months from now? What's a year from now? I get the business sense, they don't want to offer me this deal that I'm fighting for every penny, and they meet me where I want to be and then they lose out on it, the contract is going to benefit the person handing the contract. And I had a conversation, signed the contract two years later, it was a five-year deal. Two years later, Vince brought me to the office, up in a very fancy office, at the Royal Rumble, and was like, Hey, you're underpaid. Let's fix this. He offered me a different deal and I said No thank you, this is what I want. And he said, You want to bet on yourself? I said, absolutely do. He goes, how about we do a one year deal for this much? Done. Bet on myself, and it worked out fantastic for me, because 10 months later, I got a fantastic deal. I've had, like I said, five contracts there. I bet on myself through them. I did it again."

"When I went down to NXT that day, they were releasing everybody. A guy named Dan was in charge of all that. I had no idea they were releasing people. So I see that I missed a call from Dan. I just got out of a boxercise class. I was wanting to get back in boxing, and I was trying to again. I was told to lose weight for some reason, who knows? I never thought I was in bad shape. I used to be 330 pounds, there's going to be loose skin, not abs. It's just the nature of the beast with me. I was a gigantic refrigerator, but I was trying. Again, you want me to be professional and do what you asked me Done, let's go. And Dan, I would call him, and he's like, Hey, I think you've seen we've been releasing people today. I go, No, I had no idea. So I was like, wow, this is a call. I'm done. This was maybe September, while I was in NXT, and he's like we're not letting you go. I go, Okay, so what's up? He goes, we can't keep paying you what we're paying you with what you're doing in NXT. I was like, Okay. He's like, you're gonna take a significant pay cut. I go, okay, so what are we talking? Again, I'm fine with it, because I understand. I'm a business guy. You can't be paying me this monster contract of main roster, what I thought was monster while I'm in NXT working one day a week, if that."

On if a WWE return could be possible:

"I think so. I don't think it ever closes. I mean, how many people, look at the roster now of guys. Cody, Drew, Punk. I mean Punk, the guy who said he would never, ever, ever, ever go back. Again, I hold no ill will towards WWE because I'm so thankful for everything they've ever given me the opportunities to perform in front of millions of people on TV, in person, go to Boys and Girls Club, pull a plane for Special Olympics. There's just so many cool things they do. I was a little bummed I didn't get to be on Netflix. How cool is that? It's such a really awesome thing, and things are changing there. I never thought I would see logos on the ring, because it's been such a historic business of don't change this, this is the history. We don't mess with it. Hunter’s bringing a new light, a new vibe, a new energy and I think it's going to bring new fans. You're seeing celebrities. It's not what it used to be where guys were like, Are you a wrestling fan? Don't let anybody hear me tell you but did you see Raw last night? Now it's like, this is cool, man. This is fun. Stars from [George] Kittle to all these people. [Patrick] Mahomes was at Raw, Bad Bunny is killing it. It's not like, Hey, we're bringing these guys in and they have no clue, we're just gonna pay him to show up. Like, these are people who they know what they're doing. They know what they're getting." 

What is Baron Corbin grateful for?

"Family, my time in WWE and the opportunities I have gotten."