There’s been a lot of talk in recent weeks about Baron Corbin. The main talking point has been about the decision to take the Money In The Bank briefcase from him a week before SummerSlam. The decision was made at the last minute and it was clear that he did something to upset people in management. While he does have some heat over things he’s said on Twitter, the word is that the reason why he is hot water has nothing to do with social media and is completely unrelated to John Cena.
The latest update, according to a report from PWInsider, is that management was down on him because of an incident that took place early last month. There was a meeting with the talent and Dr. Joseph Maroon was brought in to talk with them about concussion-related injuries. Maroon is the Medical Director for WWE and has worked as the team neurosurgeon of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Maroon talked about a recent study on deceased NFL players who were diagnosed post-mortem with CTE. CTE was found in 99% of brains from deceased NFL players that were donated to research, according to a study published in the medical journal JAMA. The feeling was that Maroon was downplaying the study and that rubbed some people the wrong way. Maroon had previously come under fire for saying that long-term neurological damage among football players was over-exaggerated. In February 2015, Maroon’s “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Contact Sports: A Systematic Review of All Reported Pathological Cases” study failed to disclose his 30-year relationship with the NFL and the criticism of him is that he has a conflict of interest by downplaying the CTE studies.
Corbin is a former NFL player and took issue with what was said by Maroon at the meeting. According to people at the meeting, he argued some of Maroon’s points. Corbin is part of a concussion-related lawsuit against the NFL and said that he knew that Maroon was against the CTE studies.
Maroon said that he agreed that CTE was a problem but downplayed that 99% of the studied players had CTE. One source said that things got awkward and while Corbin had the best intentions, he may have spoken out at the wrong place and the wrong time and, perhaps, should have spoken to Maroon privately.
There were some wrestlers that were impressed by Corbin for speaking out because most people will keep quiet even if they disagree with things said at talent meetings. Corbin is still in the mix in a program with AJ Styles so it does not look like he will be buried as a lower card guy but it does appear that a message was sent to him when he was taken out of the WWE Championship mix.
Here are some more trending WWE news stories from the past week:
- MAJOR name returning to WWE?
- Former WWE star robbed of $50,000 at Public Storage facility
- Major name being considered as the headliner for the 2018 WWE Hall Of Fame
- WWE is erasing another person from their history
- Sasha Banks gets very candid about the way WWE is booking her
