Baron Corbin Explains His Thought Process Going Into Matches; Praises Seth Rollins’ Mindset

Baron Corbin talks about his mindset going into matches and why he enjoys multi-man setups such as Battle Royals or Money in the Bank Ladder Matches. 

Baron Corbin is a performer that prides himself on his ability to work with anyone on the WWE roster in any given scenario. Speaking in a recent interview with Sean Ross Sapp, the former WWE United States Champion explained his mindset going into matches and praised Seth Rollins for having a similar mindset.

“When I go into a match, my number one thought process is, ‘How do we make this the best match possible? How does everybody gain something from it?’ When it’s one-on-one, sometimes you don’t always have that. Maybe somebody’s gonna be a little selfish, whatever it is,” he said. “I’m a guy who takes pride in, ‘Let’s put on the best absolute show we can put on.’ You take a guy like Seth. He’s the same. That’s why he has chemistry with everybody he ever works with because he doesn’t go, ‘How do I make Seth Rollins the best out there?’ He goes, ‘How do we make this the best for everybody? I think when I approach those big man matches, that’s what I try to do, like, ‘Well, how do we elevate three, four or five guys?’

“You can get in there and move, but I’m also the threat of a car crash like when you have guys like Ricochet that move, and they’re fast — AJ Styles, they do these amazing things,” he added. “Then you have a guy like me who’s just a freight train and can cause complete mayhem. I think that adds a level of excitement to it because you’re going, ‘Okay, well, Ricochet is flying — oh, no, Corbin just knocked him out of the air. He’s laying on the floor. He might be dead.’ There is a threat that you add, and I liked the complexity of it. When I played football, it was 11-on-11. I’m having to step up to the line. I’m reading the defense. ‘How many down linemen, how many linebackers, how many safeties? Are they high? Are they low? Like, I’ve always built a career on assessing the entire thing. So those big man matches, that’s the way I look at it. I look at it like a football field. ‘Okay, we got two guys here, three guys here. What can we do? How can we create magic?’ I think it works out well.”

When Sean Ross Sapp mentions that Corbin’s endurance is often something other wrestlers praise, Corbin credited his pride in what he does as something that elevates him in that regard and said it’s been fun to test his endurance on the NXT roster.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s just you got to find the right place to breathe. Like I said, I take pride in what I do, and if I’m not there for a guy because I’m tired, it obviously is not making them look better or making the match stand out. So that’s one of those things I pride myself in the ability to go. It’s kind of fun to test that in NXT. I’ve had to really do that because, in NXT, those guys move at a different pace. I’m looking at it, I’m watching it, and I’m going, ‘Dude, I’m gonna die.’ I had that match with Ilja [Dragunov]. We went like 19 minutes, and I didn’t get tired. It was awesome. The emotion was there, the physicality was there, and the speed of NXT was there, but it’s cool because it’s making me step up another level. That’s what I always want to do is just keep continuing to step up to another level.”

Fans can read more about Corbin’s transition to NXT here.

Corbin has also gotten to test himself against Gable Steveson in the past at WWE NXT Great American Bash. Fans can read Kurt Angle’s thoughts on that match here.