Why Baron Corbin can still make it as a top heel on SmackDown
As soon as Baron Corbin arrived on the WWE main roster scene at WrestleMania 32, he made an immediate impact by winning the third annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
This came after a dominant run in NXT that saw him annihilate virtually everyone who stepped foot in his path of destruction and suffered a minimal amount of losses in singles competition, most of which came in high-profile matches. Although he never once held (let alone contended for) the NXT Championship, he never needed the gold to solidify himself as one of the promotion's biggest bad guys, both figuratively and literally.
Corbin was never the best wrestler in NXT, especially compared to the likes of Finn Balor, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens and others, but who said he had to be? His string of squash matches, that sometimes clocked in at under 15 seconds, were enough for fans to take notice of him. After establishing himself, he started having longer matches with the likes of Samoa Joe and Apollo Crews.
That eventually earned him a spot on the main roster, and there are few ways one can make a bigger impact than by debuting on the grandest stage of them all and winning a match dedicated to the memory of the legendary Andre the Giant.