WWE: Baron Corbin Shouldn’t Get Lost in the Shuffle
At WWE TLC last month, former RAW GM-Elect Baron Corbin’s reign of tyranny came to a screeching halt when he lost his job in a match with Braun Strowman. Since then, The Lone Wolf has reverted back to just being a wrestler and has lost some steam in the process.
Baron Corbin lost a No DQ Handicap match against Chad Gable, Bobby Roode, Apollo Crews, and Kurt Angle on the night after WWE TLC.
A week later, he’d lose in the Christmas main event of Raw to Seth Rollins. The week after that, not only did Corbin fail to win the Fresh Start Battle Royal, but to add insult to injury, he’d get pummeled by Elias to close out his 2018.
We are hours away from the first Raw of 2019 and Baron Corbin isn’t looking too good heading into the new year. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
There was once a time when Baron Corbin was the top heel of Monday Night Raw. He used to lay out top guys like Braun Strowman while standing tall alongside titans like Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre. Now, he’s struggling to stay in the ring in Battle Royals featuring Apollo Crews and Curt Hawkins. He may not have always had the strongest booking compared to those higher on the WWE totem pole, but he’s never looked as weak as he has in these last few weeks.
Seeing Corbin revisit an old rivalry with Elias shows not only that the former General Manager is being knocked down a few pegs off the main event ladder, but worst of all, WWE have no better plans for him.
Quite frankly, this is unacceptable. We all understand that Corbin is an easy punching bag to pick on, but in these last few months as GM-Elect, The Lone Wolf was bringing his A-game. After struggling for years to find a groove that connected with audiences, Corbin remodeled his entire look and character to become Raw’s biggest villain.
After spending the latter half of 2018 playing his role to a perfect tee, Corbin goes into 2019 with no direction at all. For the work he put in during that time, Corbin deserves better.
At the very least, he deserves to remain in the main event picture. As a main event player, he was a heel who everyone wanted to see get the snot kicked out of him. We wanted to see somebody – anybody – wipe that sniveling grin off his face every once in a while. This dynamic made for some captivating confrontations and segments with the likes of Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman and Ronda Rousey.
Seeing Corbin go from athletes of that caliber to another feud with Elias feels disappointing and counter-productive to the progress that Corbin has made thus far. No offense to Elias, but it’s a step down for Corbin to go from main eventing against the Universal Champion to someone who is yet to even win a championship in WWE.
We don’t know what the future holds for Baron Corbin in 2019 – from the looks of it, neither does WWE – but due to the character work he’s displayed in the last year, he deserves be one of the Superstars who WWE prioritize going forward.