Baron Corbin used several different gimmicks while in WWE, but his career recently ended when the company opted not to renew his contract.
One of those pairings came in late 2022 when he was paired with John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) as his manager. However, Corbin quickly went on a losing streak before JBL cut ties with him. This was after Corbin had gotten over as Sad Corbin before going into the Happy Corbin gimmick.
In February 2023, it was reported that WWE gave up on the pairing because it felt it wasn’t working. To get out of the storyline, WWE shared a video of JBL stating that he didn’t want to be associated with Corbin because he was making him look bad by losing so many matches.
“I can’t put my finger on why it struggled,” Corbin said to the TakeDown. “I think the people, and John and myself, wanted more out of it. I wanted [JBL] to be able to decapitate a few people, and it’s a process of getting him back in the ring and getting him doing that. He just became like a mouthpiece for me in the introduction thing, where he would get the crowd all riled up for me. But I think we all just wanted a little bit more from that, and it just didn’t click. I’ll take the fall for it. I’m happy to do that because JBL is one of the greatest of all time, and sometimes things just don’t click. It is what it is.”
Corbin was one of the people for whom Vince McMahon always had time. Under Triple H, that wasn’t the case, as he had been in NXT before moving to the main roster again prior to his departure.
