Baron Corbin Talks Vince McMahon Bodychecking Him Backstage, Triple H Revealing Main Roster Call-Up
Recently on Talk Is Jericho, WWE Superstar 'Mr. Money In The Bank' Baron Corbin talked about his relationship with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and how he was told about being called up to WWE's main roster.
On the subject of his relationship with McMahon, Corbin said they are growing closer now and they even talk about creative ideas together. Additionally, Corbin shared that McMahon is great at checking his ego.
"He's an intimidating person in a sense, so when you walk in there, I want to emote confidence anytime I'm around him and I think we've developed a little bit of a rapport." Corbin continued, "we're on that level where I can straight shoot him. If I walk in there, I can go, 'this is terrible – let's do this better' and he'll go, 'oh, no, no, that's terrible – we're doing it this way.' We kind of [play] tug of war with each other a little bit, so it's good. But he [has] put a vote of confidence in me and he [has] pulled me into his office a couple of times, and been like, 'this, this, this,' 'this needs to get better,' 'you're doing great at this,' 'you're not as great as you think you are'. He's a good guy to check your ego and I had that talk a while ago and he said, 'hey, I think you're really reaching for that brass ring. I think you can be something special, but you're not as good as you think you are.' So you step back and look at yourself in the mirror and go, 'okay, how can I get better?'"
In addition to egos, McMahon is also known to check bodies backstage with some good, old fashioned roughhousing. Corbin shared some of McMahon's rowdy backstage antics, which Jericho likened to that of a "college dormitory student". The doyen of the Deep Six indicated that McMahon enjoys sneaking up on people and bodychecking them and also slapping people on the back very hard.
"The other day, he got me good. I was just standing by 'Gorilla' [position] and looking at myself in the mirror or something and he bodychecked me. I about went into the mirror and I turned around ready to swing at somebody. I was like, 'who just shoved me?' and it was Vince and he's just belly-laughing, but I can't go do anything? What am I going to do? He just shoved me! Or he'll sneak up behind you and smack you across the back really hard. It startles you and you're instantly angry, like, 'argh! If you weren't Vince McMahon?'"
Corbin recalled, "it was so funny because then later, he was stopped texting on his phone or whatever and I just snuck up behind him and whispered in his ear, 'I could have got you back right there.' And he just belly-laughed? but yeah, you've got to give it back to him a little bit."
When asked how he found out about being called up to the main roster, Corbin fondly recalled that Triple H pulled him into a private room after the Northwest Missouri State University Bearcat's match against Austin Aries match at NXT TakeOver: Dallas and 'The Game' told Corbin about his end of days in NXT, barely looking up from his mobile telephone.
"I mean, that was crazy and that was really funny. It was a moment I'll never forget because we had done TakeOver in Brooklyn, or not Brooklyn. Dallas. And I thought I had a decent match that night. It wasn't my favorite match, Austin Aries, it wasn't my favorite body of work and I was kind of just frustrated, if you will, because it was one of those things, 'man, it could have been so much better.' And Hunter pulled me in a back room and I said, 'oh, no! He thinks the same thing!' And he never breaks typing on his cell phone to tell me this, but he's like, typing on his phone, he looks up, he goes, 'hey, tomorrow, you're going to be in the André The Giant Memorial Battle Royal.' And I was like, 'what?' And he goes, 'you're called up to the main roster' and he just walked out. I was like, 'what the hell? How are you going to just tell me that in the middle of a text message and then walk out into the other room?' It was such a crazy rush of emotions. Like, all that hard work paid off."
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Source: Talk Is Jericho