When Wade Barrett left WWE in 2016, many expected him to return to the promotion sooner or later. Very few, however, thought that he would be returning as a full-time commentator for NXT. The former IC champion returned to the promotion in August 2020. He replaced Mauro Ranallo who was released by the officials. Barrett has been the lead commentator for the developmental brand ever since.
The former Nexus leader was the latest guest on Corey Graves’ After The Bell. Explaining why he took the commentator job, Barrett revealed that he was first given the opportunity by the late Dusty Rhodes. According to him, it was something that was always in the back of his mind:
“I left WWE in 2016. I’ve been with the company close to 10 years through developmental and all that stuff. I was really kind of burned out by 2016 and looking not only to step away from WWE but from the industry in general. So I kind of took a couple of years, went away, did some other things like acting, some TV hosting and slowly but surely as tends to be the case the love for sports entertainment wrestling, came back. [So] I started doing some independent things here and there.
Wade Barrett continued: “The one thing that I always knew I wanted to do when I got a little older, I didn’t want to be a coach. I didn’t want to be a trainer or set up my own training school, which a lot of guys do. I really wanted to be a commentator. When I was back in developmental in Florida Championship Wrestling in 2009, I was actually a commentator there under Dusty Rhodes. He decided to give me a shot at that and he really liked what I was doing. I was working with Byron Sexton who was the play-by-play guy, so I always knew, Okay, that’s in my back pocket. One day I [would] love doing that. I’d love to get back to it one day.”
Wade Barrett Explains How He Got Hired As A Commentator
Wade Barrett then explained how he got the position in NXT. Michael Cole first contacted him in the summer of 2020. The two sides talked for a while but a deal was not made. At first, Barrett was told that it was going to be a while before he can take up the position, but then things changed in a very WWE manner:
“Thankfully I got a call from Tom Phillips and Michael Cole back in summer 2020 saying ‘look, we’ve got a position opening up. We think you be great for it. We’ve seen what you’ve done before. We think you’re a good fit for the show. Are you interested?’ Two or three weeks after chatting with them, they’re like, ‘yeah you know, probably come back in about six months or something like that. It’s gonna be a little while.’ Then I got an emergency phone call from Michael Cole: ‘Hey, we need you in tomorrow. Can You get on a plane? We need you to start right now.’ [I went] ‘Okay, yeah, let’s do it.’ So, as is the case in WWE, things change very rapidly.”
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