5 booking mistakes WWE made with Wade Barrett

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WWE dropped the "Bad News" gimmick far too early

Huge things were expected of Wade Barrett in WWE when he burst onto the scene in 2010 as the winner of NXT season 1.

The Englishman soon emerged as the leader of the villainous Nexus faction and he was even touted as a possible WrestleMania opponent for The Undertaker after competing in several pay-per-view main events early on in his career.

The man who later became known as Bad News Barrett and King Barrett ultimately had a successful six years on WWE's main roster, as proven by his five Intercontinental Championship reigns, but why didn't he reach that next level and ever become WWE champion?

In this article, we take a look at five booking mistakes that WWE made with Barrett’s character.


#5 The end of The Nexus

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Wade Barrett was the original leader of The Nexus

If you look back at the most shocking moments on Monday Night Raw over the last 10 years, The Nexus’ surprise debut and attack on John Cena almost certainly springs to mind.

Everybody knows that the heel faction should have gone on to defeat Team Cena at SummerSlam 2010, but WWE still had a chance to keep The Nexus relevant when they split the group into two stables, The Corre and The New Nexus, a few months later.

Wade Barrett, the original Nexus leader, joined forces with Ezekiel Jackson, Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel to form The Corre. However, despite winning Intercontinental and Tag Team gold, the four-man group were shadows of their former selves and Barrett’s booking was particularly disappointing.

Towards the end of 2010, he had been involved in five PPV main events out of a possible six. Just four months later, at WrestleMania XXVII, he wasn’t even tagged in during a 92-second match which saw The Corre lose against The Big Show, Kane, Santino Marella and Kofi Kingston.

#4 Meaningless Intercontinental Championship reigns

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Wade Barrett won the Intercontinental Championship five times

Nowadays, there are more titles in WWE than ever and excluding the Cruiserweight Championship, they are all regularly defended on pay-per-views.

However, during Wade Barrett’s five reigns with the Intercontinental Championship, WWE took the title a lot less seriously than they have done over the last couple of years with the likes of Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, The Miz, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins.

Barrett held the title for a combined 397 days, which puts him eleventh on the all-time list of cumulative days as champion, but it was clear during his reigns that WWE never made a conscious effort to make the IC title feel relevant again.

This was best summed up at WrestleMania 29 when Barrett lost the title against The Miz. Despite being the only match on the kickoff show, it was given just eight minutes, and the title change felt totally pointless when the Englishman won it back from Miz just a day later.

#3 The end of the Bad News Barrett gimmick

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Bad News Barrett was hugely popular with fans

When a WWE Superstar starts receiving crowd reactions that the company’s decision-makers didn’t initially intend for them to get, we often see the character tone down the things that made them so popular in the first place.

It’s happened with multiple performers in the past, such as Ryback when he was told to stop shouting “Feed Me More”, and it’s arguably happening right now with Rusev, who continues to be portrayed as a bad guy despite being one of WWE’s most popular Superstars.

Between 2013 and 2014, a similar thing happened when the villainous Wade Barrett started delivering hilarious “Bad News” promos. However, it didn’t take long before WWE forced him to stop the popular gimmick and began writing word-for-word promos for him again as a heel.

Barrett later told Sports Illustrated that the lack of control over his career “reduced his passion more than anything” for being a WWE Superstar.

#2 The King Barrett debacle

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King Barrett felt like a demotion compared to Bad News Barrett

It looked to be a sign of better things to come when Bad News Barrett won the 2015 King of the Ring, defeating Neville in the final, but it turned out to be the beginning of the end of the Brit’s WWE career.

While the KOTR tournament has helped propel several WWE Superstars to the top of the card throughout the years, including Steve Austin and Triple H, the months that followed Barrett’s victory weren’t exactly fit for a king.

Having already taken away his popular “Bad News” gimmick, WWE made the KOTR winner wear a silly crown and cape for the next few months, while he was involved in an underwhelming rivalry with R-Truth which culminated in Barrett putting his “king” status on the line in a match at Battleground 2015.

Barrett won the final meeting between the two but, given how unpopular the royal gimmick was, he probably wishes he lost.

#1 Fourth man in the League of Nations

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WWE clearly favoured Rusev, Sheamus and Alberto Del Rio

After a brief alliance with Stardust to face Neville and Stephen Amell at SummerSlam 2015, King Barrett joined forces with Rusev, Sheamus and Alberto Del Rio in the villainous League of Nations stable.

The international faction only lasted five months but they were still around long enough to leave their mark, with the highlight of their time together coming when they defeated The New Day – and subsequently had a confrontation with Steve Austin, Mick Foley and Shawn Michaels – at WrestleMania 32.

The problem? It was clear right from the beginning that Barrett was the outsider of the group – something that was proven at WrestleMania when he was forced to watch on from ringside as the rest of his faction members faced The New Day in a 3-on-3 match.

It seemed like such a waste to have Barrett in that role when he was the Intercontinental champion and King of the Ring winner just a year earlier, so it was no surprise that he rejected the offer of a new contract with WWE and left the company a couple of months later.