Tom Pestock (fka Baron Corbin) never became WWE Champion, but the Lone Wolf has an idea as to what happened to his planned reign.
In 2017, Corbin captured the Money in the Bank contract but his attempted cash-in was thwarted by John Cena later that same year.
On a recent edition of the “Insight” podcast, Pestock discussed what he knew about plans for him to win WWE’s richest prize. He said,
“I think Vince saw me becoming World Champion, and I think that winning that he’s like, you’re going to hold it for a while. Because I think Jinder being champ also played a part of not only him doing his thing because he’s an incredible performer, but also they were trying to get a certain demographic of an audience, that helped, and they had no intentions of changing that title at that time. So it was to carry it, and it was eventually to take it off of Jinder. But obviously it did not come to fruition.”
Mahal’s WWE title reign ended in November 2017. At the time, Corbin would still have had over half a year to cash in the contract.
At the time, it was reported by the Wrestling Observer that Corbin’s stock had fallen backstage, resulting in a title run being nixed.
Corbin was reportedly being ‘punished’ due to undisclosed reasons and Cena would handily defeat him at that year’s SummerSlam pay-per-view event.
Corbin’s only championships saw the former Superstar win the United States Title in 2017 before capturing the NXT Tag Team Championships in 2024.
Pestock recently debuted for GCW Bloodsport where he competed against Josh Barnett. Pestock lost and the pair showed respect after the match.
