Chris Hero Recalls WWE Encouraging Baron Corbin To Be An A**hole, Yelling At Him Over It

Baron Corbin signed with WWE in 2012, coming over from the world of football. 

An early gimmick for Corbin was that he didn’t have to go through the Independent ranks to make a name for himself in the world of wrestling. Chris Hero (Kassius Ohno in WWE) is one of the most respected named in Independent wrestling history and Corbin’s attitude behind the scenes didn’t vibe with Hero’s 

Speaking with Mojo Rawley on Shoot Conversations, Hero and Rawley recalled a time when Hero yelled at Corbin for disrespecting veterans. 

Chris Hero: He was brand new. Football Tom is Baron Corbin, he’s burned into my head forever as Football Tom. He speaks, ‘Yeah…okay,’ You might think he’s kind of bored when he talks. He doesn’t speak like, ‘Oh yes, okay.’ The new class that was starting that day, he’s like, ‘Yeah…they got this new girl,’ and he was talking about Sara [Amato]. I just remember that it happened and I was standing in McIntyre’s and I was like, ‘How dare you!’ 

Mojo Rawley: You went HAM. When Tom came in, he came in almost in gimmick. 

CH: They encouraged it too, ‘Yeah, it’s okay, just be an asshole.’

MR: I’m almost positive someone told him to act like that. He likes being a jerk, he thinks it’s funny. 

CH: No, I heard at the time that he was told to play it up. ‘It’s okay. You want people…’ Fuck off, that’s terrible advice. Sara Del Ray had just come in at a tryout camp, the same one with Sasha Banks, Sami Zayn, Scott Dawson, and a bunch of them got hired. Sara got hired as a coach, so she came to Tampa to coach the girls. For him to go, ‘Oh yeah, some new girl.’ Maybe I’m embellishing. 

MR: I felt like that was the tipping point for you. There were some other things and that was the last straw. 

CH: I was like, ‘How dare you, fucking do some research. You’re going to talk about one of your coaches that way? Get your shit in gear.’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry man, why are you so mad?’ We never had any kind of continued heat off of that, I just remember being like, ‘What’s this guy’s problem?’

MR: If I remember correctly, you got up in his face about it too. When he was trying to get away, you were going with him. 

CH: You were just meeting me at the time, but now that you’ve known me, you know I don’t do things like that. If I feel passionate about something, I’ll cut a promo on someone, but it rarely happens. 

MR: That was the one and only. 

Elsewhere during the conversation, Mojo recalled his starting salary in NXT and being told that he, Corbin and Brandon Carter [TAC in WWE] were going to be jumped due to their football background. You can find their full comments by clicking here.

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.