2 Ups And 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE Talking Smack (Jan 17)

1. Up - The Lone Headliner

Shane McMahon Bray Wyatt
WWE

Outside of the work between Daniel Bryan and The Miz, there's been no superstar stronger at grasping the advantages of Talking Smack's unique setting than Baron Corbin.

Stealing the show again in his portion of the evening's broadcast, he cooly blew off his defeat to John Cena from last week's Smackdown Live.

Sensibly arguing that no one man can win every time, he noted that had Cena taken either Deep Six or the End of Days it would have been a different story.

Delivering his lines with complete conviction, he then positioned himself as one of the only stars in the loaded Royal Rumble match, alongside Brock Lesnar, Goldberg and The Undertaker.

On a roll, he veered off on a hilarious tangent, predicting easy victory in the Rumble match, a WWE Title win in the Elimination Chamber and a non-match against himself headlining Wrestlemania allowing him an early finish and a quick drive home from the 'Show of Shows'.

Only stopping to interrupt Shane McMahon's attempts to shut him down, Corbin oozed the sort of confidence his superiors will love, and based on displays like this, will continue to be given opportunities to improve on the job.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett