Baron Corbin spoke with Sports Illustrated this week to promote tonight’s King of the Ring finals match against Chad Gable on WWE RAW from Knoxville, TN.
Regarding his role as the most-disliked Superstar on the roster, Corbin said he feels at home when he is hated by the fans.
“It brings me back to when my father would take me to football practices or boxing. My dad would tell me, ‘You’re not out there to make friends, you’re out there to win,’” Corbin said. “That’s how I was brought up, and it stuck with me to tailor who I am now. I’m out there trying to be the best, not to make people love me. I really don’t care about anyone else’s feelings.”
Corbin believes WWE fans are irritated by the fact that he didn’t wrestle in the independents before going through WWE’s developmental system. He faced similar hate in football as people were always knocking him because he came from Division II. He talked about how the similarities between his backgrounds in pro football and pro wrestling are almost the same.
“My goal was to beat guys out of their job, even if they played at Oklahoma when I played at Northwest Missouri State,” Corbin said. “Those guys thought they were better than me, and that’s the same thing that irritates the fans in WWE. I didn’t wrestle in the independents, I didn’t pay my dues the way people think you should in wrestling. Someone like Seth Rollins, he wrestled in small gymnasiums for no money. I didn’t do that, but I’m still here—and none of those guys can do what I did. That absolutely fuels my ego.”
Corbin also said he will always stand up for WWE. He name-dropped Vince McMahon, Triple H, Fit Finlay and WWE Hall of Famer Michael “PS” Hayes, and praised the company as the best.
“I’ll always stand up for WWE,” Corbin said. “We have the best superstars in the world, and we have the best people helping. We have Triple H, Michael Hayes, Fit Finlay, and Vince McMahon. We’re the best in the world, and I’m willing to stand up for that. I hold what we do to anyone in the world, no matter if it’s another wrestling company or the MLB or the NFL.
“We have no off-season, we’re on the road and sometimes doing the travel by ourselves. It’s a different grind. When I was in the NFL, it was all luxury team-owned planes and five-star hotels. We don’t have that, but we dominate the wrestling world and the entire sports world with some of the most talented and driven people I’ve ever been around.”
