Former WWE star Tom Pestock (Baron Corbin) appeared on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, where he talked about a number of topics including a head WWE writer saying they needed “bodies” for Jacob Fatu.
Pestock said, “I almost lost it one time. I was so angry, and I don’t get angry that easy over stuff like this. I try not to let people control my emotions. I was sitting with the head writer of SmackDown, and it still makes my blood boil because it doesn’t pertain just to me, but I was like, ‘Do we have any ideas? What are you thinking creatively?’ He’s like, ‘We have Jacob [Fatu] up and running. We’re going to need bodies for him.’ We’re not bodies. Nobody on this roster is just a body. That was so frustrating to hear. It doesn’t belong to me, but this is what you think of? Body for someone else?”
On why he finds it disrespectful:
“If you want to say something like that, go, ‘We think you’d be great to help build Jacob.’ Let’s go. ‘We’re going to need bodies.’ He’s referring to the bottom half of our roster. It’s so disrespectful to say that about people who go out there and put their lives on the line every night. Careers can be ended in an instant. Look at Big E. One wrong suplex and he may never wrestle again. It can end like that. You can end up a quadriplegic; all of these things can happen. It’s your livelihood and how you put food on the table.”
On the importance of talents building up other wrestlers:
“I’m grateful to have a long career that I don’t have to worry about that. If you’re three years in and just a body and disregarded as not even a human being, in a sense, come on. It takes Everyone. Guys who are there to be extras are just as important as talent. Without those guys, we don’t have better superstars that can do that and do it well. is fed to you, and you’re given everything opportunity, and you’re built on this pedestal. When you’re the dude clawing at the bottom trying to get there, it’s way harder to be down there and survive and be happy and successful than to be ‘this is our guy and everything funnels to him.’ That’s easy to be up there. The only hard part is the amount of time it takes. When you’re put on a pedestal, it’s much easier than being a guy fighting for those two or three minutes. To refer to them as bodies….I said something and he was like, ‘I didn’t think of how I said it that way.’”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
