After talking a whole lot of talk in his return to NXT, announcing to current NXT Champion Carmelo Hayes that he is the new gatekeeper of WWE's developmental system, Baron Corbin was served a big ole piece of humble pie at Gold Rush when his jersey was hoisted up into the rafters of the Performances Center by “Him.”

Embarrassing? Most definitely, Corbin brought a ton of confidence back to NXT that was quickly squashed by a performer a decade his junior but in professional wrestling, like in life, it's not so much about what happens when you get knocked down but how you get back up after. For Corbin, that means burning the boats and leaving the you-know-what on the main roster.

“Last Tuesday sucked. I didn’t walk out of there the NXT Champion like I thought I would. Now I’m embarrassed, and I’m p*ssed off. I miscalculated experience and the nostalgia of the Lone Wolf, and I thought it’d be enough. I’ve got everything I want, the money, the fame, the family, but what I don’t have is the reputation. I’m seen as safe, consistent, good. Good, are you kidding me with good? What I want is to be feared and respected. I want people to say, ‘Who’s next for Corbin’ not, ‘Who’s Corbin going to be next?’”Corbin asked the NXT audience.

“I understand to dictate my future, I can’t bank on the past; I have to kill it. I don’t need anyone bowing down to me, I don’t want a position of authority; it doesn’t matter if I have pockets or what’s inside them. I d**n sure don’t need a manager, and I haven’t worked eight long years to go all the way back to the beginning. Burn all the ships. I can’t go back; there’s no going back. It’s no more gimmicks, no nonsense, no bulls**t.”

What does the future hold for the not-so-Happy Corbin? Only time will tell, but two things appear to be true: 1. he's going to be sticking around in NXT a little bit longer, and 2. he's leaving the gimmicks on the main roster.

Baron Corbin has a fan in NXT commentator Booker T.

Discussing Baron Corbin's recent return to NXT on his Hall of Fame podcast, WCW/WWE/TNA Champion-turned-NXT commentator Booker T gave some of his “Shucky Ducky Quack Quack” rub to the performer now-formerly known as the “Lone Wolf,” celebrating his willingness to put Carmelo Hayes over and make him look like a star.

“Let me tell you, man, that boy Carmelo Hayes was taking a beating in that match. I tell you, Baron Corbin, he stepped up. He went out there and made that young man shine. He really did put Carmelo in position to rise up,” Booker said via Wrestling Inc. “And I always say, when you work with a guy like a Baron Corbin, a Finn Balor, a Seth Rollins, when you're a young guy, man, that's like on-the-job training right there. That's knowledge that you cannot learn in any wrestling school or anything like that.”

“So for that young man, Carmelo Hayes, him to be in the ring with Baron Corbin, that ‘Lone Wolf' persona seems to be coming back,” he added. “I loved it, man. I love actually sitting at ringside watching those kinds of matches, man, because those guys went out there and left everything in the middle of that ring. And it was beautiful.”

After securing a pair of commanding wins on NXT television, beating up on Trick Williams in a surprisingly good match, and following that up with a win over Ilja Dragunov in a number one contenders match – a win made all the more impressive after eating an L in about two minutes versus Butch in a Money in the Bank qualifying match on SmackDown – Corbin did the job versus Hayes at Gold Rush, dropping the match in a little over 16 minutes while selling everything the “A-Champ” threw his way. Call it the benefit of working over 1,000 matches in the WWE system since signing with the company in 2012, call it the unfortunate result of having lost 62.9 percent of his matches as a pro, including 31 of his 34 matches in 2023 alone, but if anyone knows how to lose a match with dignity, it's Corbin. Despite being a detestable heel more often than not, there's a reason why Corbin retired Kurt Angle and was the last man to pin Roman Reigns before Jey Uso at Money in the Bank: WWE rewards performers who work for others as much as themselves.