WWE News: Former ECW World Champion, Ring Of Honor Star Heading To WWE

In the past couple of years, WWE has performed a bit of a talent raid of numerous companies by signing a lot of free agents. TNA, Ring of Honor, New Japan Pro Wrestling, and numerous other companies have lost stars to Vince McMahon, and now one of those promotions is losing another wrestler. Steve Corino, former ECW World Heavyweight Champion and current color commentator for ROH, is heading to WWE.

For a number of years now, Corino has worked with Ring of Honor as their color commentator on the announce team. He has had a few feuds here and there, but he doesn’t do in-ring work nearly as much as he used to. However, he’s still extremely valuable.

ProWrestling.net is reporting that Corino’s time with ROH is soon coming to an end as he will finish up his time with them through December. After that, he will move on to a deal with WWE, where he will be a full-time trainer at the performance center.

Earlier this month, Corino went down to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando and worked as a guest trainer. Obviously, he made enough of an impact on Triple H and others to merit receiving a full-time deal to train NXT and WWE superstars.

Corino began his wrestling career on the independent circuit in 1994 and eventually made his way to ECW in 1998. While there, the “King of Old School” took his character to different levels and really made a huge name for himself.

He went on to win the ECW World Heavyweight Championship from Justin Credible in late 2000 but later lost it to Sandman. The reason for his loss was that ECW, who had always had money troubles, hadn’t paid the star in a while. Eventually, he found it necessary to part ways with the company.

From there, Corino went back to the independent scene and competed for numerous promotions here and there and that included TNA a couple of different times. At one point, it was thought that he would sign with WWE, but he instead chose to keep working the indies, in Japan, and eventually with Ring of Honor.

In 2007, Steve Corino announced he would go on a retirement tour as he was just about done with wrestling. He even had some tryout matches with WWE, and his old-time rival Dusty Rhodes hoped the company could sign him. However, it never came to be, as Corino thought his style just didn’t fit there.

In 2008, he began wrestling on a full-time basis once again and then returned to ROH in 2009. Since then, he has been wrestling for the company as well as becoming their full-time color commentator alongside Kevin Kelly.

Now, the WWE Performance Center is getting a veteran wrestler who knows everything about the business and can teach many up-and-coming stars. Steve Corino’s time as a guest trainer was enough to show everyone that he can do that job on a full-time basis.

The WWE Performance Center is run by Triple H, VPs William Regal and Canyon Ceman, and head trainer Matt Bloom. There had been speculation that Shawn Michaels was moving to Orlando to become the head trainer there and help NXT, but Triple H has since denied those claims.

WrestleZone reports that Corino is set to start at the WWE PC in January. Even though Corino has been doing commentary in ROH, he has only been hired by WWE for the trainer role at this time.

Steve Corino is a name that longtime and die-hard wrestling fans are very familiar with as he has been around for many years. He has been in the wrestling business for more than 20 years, and he knows a lot about how it works in the ring and out. The former ECW Champion has brought a lot to Ring of Honor and any other organization he has worked for. Now, he will bring a lot to WWE as a trainer for the performance center.

[Featured Image by Ring of Honor]