Bad News Barrett reveals who came up with the name and the gimmick
CBS-19 entertainment reporter Chris Van Vliet interviewed Bad News Barrett this morning in Cleveland. During the interview, Barrett talked about his thoughts on fellow Englishman Adrian Neville, the other stars from Season 1 of NXT having success in the WWE, being a soccer fan and much more. You can watch the full interview above, here are some highlights:
Where his gimmick came from:
"It actually came from a joke. Cody Rhodes likes to tell a story that when he was a little kid he used to watch me wrestle. I'm slightly older than Cody, we're talking three years or something like that, but in his head I'm a really old man. I once walked into the locker room and he was telling the entire locker room that when he was a kid he was watching me wrestling as this character he made up named 'Bad News Barrett' who goes around giving out bad news to people. So we all laughed about it and forgot about it. Then I was invited on the JBL and Cole show and they said they wanted to use me on the show and asked if I had any ideas of what to do. So I said you know what, let's just do Bad News Barrett. I'll just turn up and give people bad news and then disappear. I got a really good response online and fans were loving the catch phrase 'I'm afraid I've got some bad news' and Vince McMahon saw it and thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. Next thing you know I'm on TV doing it."
His catch phrase working against him:
"It's kind of a blessing and a curse that I have this catch phrase because people like to use it against me. England just lost in the World Cup the other night and believe me my Twitter exploded with people giving me the bad news of England losing to Italy."
If he thinks he can win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship with the Bad News Barrett gimmick:
"I've always said that I want to become the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. The Intercontinental Championship is nice and this is my fourth time having it but as far as I'm concerned, I'm ready to take a step up and become the man in the WWE. That's where I want to get to and if Bad News Barrett is the vehicle that gets me there then great, but if not I'll keep plugging away and one day I'll be Britain's first WWE World Heavyweight Champion... a certain part of it isn't up to me and I've got to rely on certain people making certain decisions so hopefully that works out in my favor."
His ever changing theme songs:
"Honestly I'm settled on one now. This is finally the one I really, really like. I loved the original Nexus one but as soon as we split up that went away and I had a succession of pretty average theme songs for a little while until I got the current one. And the current one actually has the bonus of a little bit of vocal work from myself which is really just me shouting "boom" over and over again. But as far as I'm concerned I'm a vocalist as well as a wrestler now (laughs)."