SmackDown drafts Baron Corbin, winner of Andre Memorial Battle Royal

Here is all you need to know about Baron Corbin, who is now officially a member of the SmackDown roster thanks to Tuesday’s WWE brand split draft.

Before he was Baron Corbin, he was Tom Pestock, an offensive lineman who played college ball at Division II school Northwest Missouri State. His impressive size led to the Indianapolis Colts signing him as an undrafted free agent in 2009, although he was released shortly after training camp. He had a stint on the Arizona Cardinals’ practice squad, but was released in September 2011 without ever appearing in a regular season game. With his football options dwindling, Pestock decided to take up pro wrestling and signed with NXT in 2012.

Corbin calls himself “the lone wolf.” He frequently has wolf designs on his gear and, from certain angles, looks like an actual werewolf who just turned back into a human after the full moon passed. Also, his theme music has a revving motorcycle engine noise. A biker werewolf? Is he The Undertaker’s embarrassing teenage son? One can only hope.

Corbin hasn’t done much of note on the main roster so far. He did win the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 32, which seemed like a springboard into bigger and better things. Then he wrestled Dolph Ziggler about 800 times and people kind of lost interest in him.

But Corbin’s real personality shone through in NXT, where he was the tall WWE guy who hated all the small indie guys coming in and taking spots. Corbin’s attitude was summed up well in this memorable promo where he told Austin Aries to go back to 50-seat gymnasiums and threw some shade at Virgil (!!!) in the process.

If we get to see that side of Corbin on SmackDown then perhaps his main roster career could really start taking off.