10 Ways WWE Fixed Broken NXT Call-Ups
7. King Corbin
A strange testament to the fluctuating state of the modern midcard and the questions WWE makes its older audience members ask, what exactly is Baron Corbin in 2020? Other than a literal king, obviously.
He was an outlier in NXT because work rate wasn't his bit. Respect for wrestling in general was positioned as bare minimum on a roster full of those that respected the process so much that they suffered for it on the main roster. Corbin's call-up was smoother, but - as if WWE will find a trap if you don't fall into one of the obvious ones - an early Vince McMahon push was allegedly harpooned by John Cena and their reductive summer series.
From there, he got hackneyed traits that chased away viewers, only to be blamed on-screen in front of the ones that were still watching. The crown and the sceptre finally solved the puzzle, but if anything, Corbin's tenacity to simply survive the stupidity got him out of what looked like a toxic loop. It's been long enough that if he won a top title, it wouldn't even look like bizarre favouritism now. Well, it would, but not to such an extent that he hasn't worked hard to achieve it.