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#3 The end of the Bad News Barrett gimmick
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.
