In the latest episode of SmackDown, Baron Corbin opened the show along with Dolph Ziggler and Bobby Roode to introduce the fans to “The Big Dog” in an attempt to mock Roman Reigns. Corbin brought out a mascot, who was dressed as a dog to make fun of Reigns’ gimmick. The whole segment was slammed by the fans in the social media as it came across like a childish attempt to get Corbin some heat before Survivor Series.
As it was earlier reported, Roman Reigns and Baron Corbin are possibly going to have a TLC match at the pay-per-view of the same name in December this year with a dog collar hanging above the ring. The segment seemed like a build-up to that match as Corbin is constantly referring to Reigns’ gimmick of ‘Big Dog’.
Both Baron Corbin and Roman Reigns are going to represent SmackDown in the upcoming Survivor Series show in the traditional 5-on-5 men’s tag team elimination match alongside Ali, Chad Gable (Short-G), and Braun Strowman. Corbin and Reigns have been feuding for a while now and the former even scored a pinfall victory over the latter on a recent episode of SmackDown.
The segment got a very bad reaction in social media and it is safe to assume that the majority of WWE’s audience were not happy with the segment. However, there was one man who loved everything about the segment, and it was none other than the company’s chairman and biggest mind in professional wrestling, Vince McMahon. According to reports of WrestlingNewsCo’s Paul Davis, Vince was “howling with laughter” backstage and thought that the segment was done very well. Other writers in the company were not happy about it, but they were not going to tell that to their boss as he loved the segment.
Paul Davis’ source further said that writers want to make Vince happy and if Vince loves something, it doesn’t matter how bad it is, they are not going to say otherwise as then they are at the risk of losing their job. Vince has always been a fan of the parody segments and as long as he is around, we will see these kinds of segments regularly.
It is no secret that WWE’s chairman is an egotistic man, who is out of touch with his current audience. But he is reluctant to hire young minds, who could do much better storylines. Jon Moxley in his interview on Talk is Jericho said that Vince does not listen to the wrestlers’ opinion in crafting their own storyline and they had to do whatever he and writers decide for them. WWE hired Paul Heyman and Bruce Pichard as the Executive Producer of Raw and SmackDown respectively to look at the creative side of things, but looking at the current backstage rumours, Vince is still the in charge of green-lighting all the things happening in the show right now.
Davis further added that Vince thinks Baron Corbin has improved a lot and is a fan of all the things that he is doing lately. It is true to a certain extent as he was phenomenal in the King of the Ring tournament, but the management is again pushing him in the main event’s scene, which could again turn his genuine heat into go-away heat.
