Baron Corbin is happy with his decision to return to NXT.
Corbin was a recent guest on WWE After The Bell with Corey Graves and Kevin Patrick. Corbin spoke about his recent return to NXT and how it was his choice to make the move.
“The Lone Wolf” said he was excited to leave NXT when he was first there starting out, but he found it to be a rewarding experience this time around.
“It was nostalgic in a sense. It’s funny because when I got out of there, man, you know better than anybody, I was losing my mind at the end of the time there at NXT. I said, ‘I’m getting out of this place and I will never, ever, ever come back. I’m out.’ Dude, I had an apartment in Orlando that I shut the door, locked it and left.
“I didn’t even take my sh*t; I was like clothes are staying, couch is staying, everything’s staying there because I had like 7 or 8 months left on the lease. I moved to Tampa, I don’t even think I cleaned out my locker in the NXT locker room. They’re like, ‘Hey, you’re up.’ I’m going, ‘I’m out dude.’ Never again.
Not On My Level
“I’ve been on the main roster a little over eight years now, so it’s been eight years since I’ve really had to go back in. July was 11 years for me, which is crazy, but I kind of got that — being in that building and seeing some of those guys that are there, it’s no different than we were there. Some guys want it, some guys don’t. And we’ll find out quickly who they are. But you get in there and you see those guys who are hungry and you’re going, ‘Yeah, man, I remember this feeling.’
“People look at it sometimes, especially in our social media world, they’re like, ‘Oh, Corbin got downgraded to NXT.’ Hell no, I did not. I did choose to go there. Like I could have said, ‘No, I’m not. I want to stay on Smackdown’ and I could be in the middle doing nothing, still as Happy Corbin music, and you know, going out there and just competing in the middle where it’s easy to do and it’s comfortable. But I wanted to go back and restart because you’re around those guys and you feel that hunger and you feel the drive they have.
“Me, it makes you want to bury them all in a sense. ‘You can’t hang with the big boys. I’m one of the big boys. I’m going to show each and every one of you that you’re not on my level.’”
Baron Corbin said that getting a chance to train with Fit Finlay’s class was rewarding too, because NXT talent got to see what a “main roster” talent was doing.
“I’m taking their hunger and using it for myself, but I’m also using it against them. I’m going, ‘Hey man, this is the level. Step up or kick rocks.”
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