WWE News: Wade Barrett opens up on being frustrated with the WWE management and his departure from the company
What’s the story?
Former WWE Superstar Wade Barrett was recently in a conversation with Pro Wrestling veteran Chris Jericho on the Talk is Jericho podcast and among other things, Barrett opened up about his departure from the WWE, his final day in the WWE, and the issues he had with the WWE creative.
In case you didn’t know…
During his stint with the WWE, British superstar Wade Barrett enjoyed an immense amount of success after successfully winning the first season of NXT in 2010 and upon his call-up to the main roster, Barrett eventually led the infamous Nexus invasion almost 8 years ago.
However, after being booted out of The Nexus, Barrett went on to form The Corre with several former Nexus members and eventually won his first WWE Intercontinental Championship, a title which he has won overall five times.
Barrett, who is also the 20th King of The Ring winner, eventually left the WWE in 2016.
The heart of the matter
While interacting with Chris Jericho on his Talk is Jericho podcast, Wade Barrett aka Stu Bennett revealed that while being on the road with the WWE, the former Bare Knuckle Champion was apparently burned out, exhausted, and beaten up, despite being treated very poorly thanks to the mediocre WWE booking.
After several years with the WWE, Barrett eventually got to the point where even the little things seemingly started to irritate him, which subsequently led to him being frustrated with the creative team and his departure from the WWE as well. (H/T: Wrestling Inc)
"I was kind of burnt out on the road as [Jericho] said. I mean, when you start on the road, everything's new and everything's fresh. You don't care that you're not home 275 nights a year, and you're constantly exhausted, and beat up, and even if you've got bad booking or something like that, it's all fine because you're living this amazing experience. After I had been up there for several years, I kind of got to the point where even the little things were irritating me, and the travel was really killing me, and I'd get to the arena, and it seemed that every RAW and every SmackDown, every Monday and Tuesday, I'd get to the arena and be so disappointed when the script for the show came out. And every week, there would just be something where I'm like, 'man, I don't want to do this.' And I'd kind of plead my case with the people in the creative or in management about doing something different or tweaking it this way, 'hey, how about moving the story this way?' and just whatever I was doing, I was just banging my head against a brick wall. And it got to the point where it felt like Groundhog Day. And my contract was running up and I'd signed a pretty long contract after the Nexus deal and stuff like that. They got me on a pretty long contract and that was just coming to a head. So they had approached me a couple of times about re-signing, and extending, and coming up with a new deal, and stuff like that. And it hadn't even got to the point of negotiating with them. I just explained to them, 'look, I need to get out. This is just killing me and I need to go do something else for a while and get away from pro wrestling,' which is essentially what I did." Barrett added, "and there [were] other things. It wasn't just in terms of the creative I wasn't happy with. There was some stuff behind-the-scenes. I had fallen out with a couple of people kind of in the talent relations and management department. I'm not going to get into specifically what that was about, but it was, 'okay, this is all coming together now to show that, with my contract coming up, I should just get away.' And that's really how it kind of all shook out."
What’s next?
Stu Bennett is currently serving as the General Manager for UK based Indie promotion Defiant Wrestling.