If this were the WWE main roster, the indy darling probably would have lost clean to the homegrown talent. Instead, we saw Samoa Joe submit Baron Corbin in the middle of the ring after a bruising, hard-hitting match. And it was the right result. Corbin has been dominant in NXT for some time now, winning nearly every match hes wrestled in mere seconds. While those repeated squashes look impressive, they do nothing to help Corbin prepare for life on the main roster. NXT is, after all, a developmental territory, and its purpose is to get wrestlers ready to compete in WWE proper. Beating a bunch of jobbers in 20 seconds doesnt prepare you to have a 10-minute match on Monday Night Raw. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_oV7T_aLhw By matching up against Samoa Joe, Corbin was forced to expand his arsenal and go toe-to-toe with a ring veteran. Joe certainly wasnt going to make Baron look bad quite the opposite. While their match wasnt a classic, it was a good hard-hitting affair that showed that Corbin can do more than hit his finisher. Hes got work to do, but if he continues matching up against Samoa Joe, it should help him. And thats exactly what developmental is for.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
