Wade Barrett Looks Fondly On Time In Nexus, Recalls Being Unable to Change in Dressing Room

Wade Barrett still looks back fondly on his time in the Nexus, even if it involved one of the dumbest things he’s ever seen in WWE. Barrett was the leader of the upstart group that came out of the first season of NXT as a competition series in 2010, and he discussed that time during his conversation with Ryan Satin on Out of Character. Barrett acknowledged the creative stumblings around the group but explained why he still appreciates that time, while also taking issue with the fact that the group were unable to change in the WWE locker rooms for storyline purposes. You can check out some highlights below:

On looking at his time in the Nexus fondly: “I have to. You’ve got to remember a couple of things. Number one, that was an avenue for me to go from a guy who had dreamed about being a WWE Superstar for many, many years, and had scratched and clawed and spent the last few years of his life living with cockroaches and driving a car around Tampa Bay, one of the hottest places in the US. And my car, I couldn’t afford one with air conditioning, so I was just sweating bullets all the time. So to suddenly go from that life to being, ‘Okay I’m now earning some good money, and being a star.’ Number one, that was huge for me. So just that change of lifestyle that came with it. And achieving those dreams and being a WWE Superstar is something I was very proud of.

“And on top of that, that was such a big moment in time in WWE, that you see a lot of people coming up from the developmental systems over the years who debut on TV. They don’t really get any traction, and within a few months they’ve gone. And there was a lot of people from FCW around that era who had that experience of debuting, losing a couple of matches, and essentially being cut. But that moment in Nexus for me, as bad as it kind of petered out towards the end, it really set me up to have the run that I had for the next six or so years on WWE.”

On the Nexus not being allowed to be in the locker room: “Genuinely, it was one of the dumbest things that I’ve experienced in my time in WWE. There was a person who was put in charge of us who is no longer with the company who decided that it would be appropriate for a faction of guys who were attacking the company to not be allowed in the locker room, which would absolutely makes sense because in terms of Nexus, we were coming out of the crowd, we were perceived as outsiders who hadn’t earned contracts in WWE. So, it kind of made a bit of logical sense.”

On the big issue that he had with it: “The problem I had with it is, look, you’re not actually filming us changing in the locker room. You’re not in the locker room itself. So nobody has any clue that were’ changing in hallways instead of the locker room apart from basically the people who work within the company. So why am I doing this? Why am I main eventing Survivor Series? Why are we all main eventing SummerSlam, yet I’m not eligible to step in the locker room here? I’m gonna change in the hallway as you know, dinner ladies and catering staff and cleaners are walking past while I’m putting my gear on. I’m like, ‘This is stupid. There’s no benefit to this. There’s no payoff to this whatsoever.'”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Out of Character With Ryan Satin with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.