Happy Corbin was a guest on the WWE After the Bell Podcast. He spoke about his influences and how they influenced his career. Corbin spoke about his passion for detail in professional wrestling and named many people that helped him reach where he is today, including the late Scott Hall. He said:
He’s a guy who knows how to make another guy with the philosophy of making your stuff mean something. If it’s one punch and it means more than 40 in a row, then you’re doing something right, it’s the details. How to look, how to carry yourself like a star, that has Terry Taylor written all over it. Look at Roman Reigns when he comes out, he just stands there and slow looks, that has Terry written all over it. It’s being a star, if you’re hunched over, not comfortable, people see that. He played an unbelievable role.
Then Razor [Scott Hall]. It’s been a tough year losing him now, but he was a guy that would tell me [advice]. I still remember when I was in Brooklyn wrestling Samoa Joe and I did something, choked him on the rope, rolled out of the ring, and celebrated, and I get to the back and he’s like ‘what the hell was that?’ I was like ‘what are you talking about?’ He’s like ‘you’ve got a big man on the ropes and you’re out holding your arms up, talking to the fans? You should’ve been punching him in the face.’ He was a guy that wasn’t afraid to tell me how to do stuff as well. He was another guy who grabbed me at the PC a few times and we had long good conversations that led to text messages here and there. He’s another guy who played an important role in the details.
I’m just a details guy, man. You look at Randy, he’s helped me as well, and Triple H, obviously, helped get me where I am big time. I like the guys who are detail-oriented and they grab onto me because I enjoy that aspect as well, too. I don’t want to go out there and just go through the motions. Anybody can learn the moves, anybody can teach somebody a shoulder tackle or hip toss, but to put the special things in-between all of that, those are the guys I’m gravitating to and I think I’m lucky that they kind of grab onto me as well.
Triple H announced his retirement from professional wrestlers as a guest on Stephen A’s World on ESPN. Like other wrestlers including Roman Reigns have praised Triple H. Happy Corbin, who has worked with Triple H throughout his career on the main roster as well as in NXT, spoke out about his influence and how he informed him that he would be called up to the main team. Corbin said:
When you’re around a guy that often when we were in NXT, we’re seeing him every Wednesday, I’m seeing him at the PC on regular days. He was coming in, he was training, and he was grabbing onto a few people and helping them with things. He just had a vision, when he was down there in NXT, of how he saw guys and put the right people around them to be successful. If it was a guy who was a wrestling technician, get him with Norman Smiley, get him in there with a guy like that that can teach them all of those things.
He sees a guy like me, I promise you Taker didn’t just go ‘ah, I’m going to go talk to this random guy.’ I’m sure Triple H said ‘hey Taker, this guy, I think he’s in your wheelhouse, go have a conversation with him, see if you grab onto him.’ I think that’s one of the special things that Triple H has, he can surround you with the right people to help find success. He knows, he sees it, he has this vision and he helps to allow you to accomplish that vision and he has fun with it. I think he loves it.
When he told me I was going to the main roster, we were in Dallas, my debut was in Dallas, and the way he just told me, not even looking up from his phone because he knows how to get to people and mess with people. He’s just casually on his phone and like ‘hey, you’re in the Andre [The Giant Battle Royal] tomorrow and you’re on the main roster now,’ and then walks out.
