WWE Hall of Famer JBL appeared on the podcast “Something to Wrestle With,” where he discussed various topics, including the reasons why his on-screen managerial pairing with Baron Corbin did not succeed in WWE.
JBL said, “I don’t know [why it didn’t work]. And you’re right about Baron, everybody likes Baron. Baron, you know, he’s a tough guy. Baron won some jujitsu contest recently. He’s a Golden Glove champion, he’s an NFL football player. He’s a big, tall guy, he’s a very smart guy, and he’s a good guy. I like Baron a lot — Bishop, or whatever name — Baron is what he’s known by. I don’t know what happened. I know it never really got a chance. I know that we talked about some different ideas, and nothing ever happened. I just — you know, they just kept beating him. And you know, cut a promo, and he come out and nothing he can do about that. And then all of a sudden, they just decided to quit.”
On the lack of a clear direction:
“There was never really a long-term plan that was told to us, at least to me. I don’t think it was told to Baron. I think he would, probably would have told me, I would assume. I don’t think he would assume that I would know. Certainly wasn’t keeping it from me. But there was never anything told to us that, ‘hey, here’s what we want to do.’ Just kind of ad hoc. You know, every week was, ‘Hey, let’s do this, let’s do this. There wasn’t really a plan. Then all of a sudden they said, ‘Oh, we’re going to kill it.’ And that was it. And there was no plan to really start it. There was no plan to really end it. There was no plan in the middle, and there was no plan to extend it. And so I don’t know why any of it was done. You know, I like Baron. I thought the matchup worked. I can’t be a manager for people that — unless somebody like Baron because I’m too tall. And you know, I thought it could be really good, but it was never — I just thought it was never given a chance.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
