Wade Barrett On How His New Commentary Gig With WWE Came About, Turning Down Nexus Reunion

Speaking with James Delow on the Gorilla Position Podcast, Wade Barrett discussed how he came back on board WWE to do commentary for NXT. Barrett returned to NXT as part of the commentary team back in August and signed a full deal with the company following Mauro Ranallo’s exit. You can see highlights from the discussion of how Barrett came back to the company below along with the full audio:

On initially being called about the Nexus reunion idea: “Yeah, it really did come out of the blue. As a lot of people know, I have been working in various commentary roles for various companies over the last few years outside of WWE since I left. Hadn’t really had much communication with WWE at all. We didn’t end on bad terms, but similarly I think I needed to get away from them … I think they were quite happy to let me some time to myself, shall we say. And I think it was best for both of our sakes to be away from each other for a while. But [at] the beginning of this year, I got a call from the talent relations department. They were talking to me about the 10-year anniversary of Nexus, and maybe doing something at WrestleMania for that. It didn’t really appeal to me at the time, the pitch and idea that they had. So I declined that.”

On being contacted about a possible commentary gig: “And then a few months later, obviously I was out of work, I wasn’t doing anything with NWA where I had been broadcasting. And I got a call from Tom Phillips and Michael Cole telling me about the possibility of working with them again. And I’ve always had a good relationship with those two; the commentary guys, I always clicked with them. So I liked the sound of it; I love doing commentary. Triple H and William Regal are also people who are now in my chain of command and again, two people I’ve always gotten on great with and I have a lot of respect for. So when it was pitched to me, ‘Hey, this is what we’re looking to do, this is the part of the company we’re looking to place you in, what do you think?’ And it was a very easy decision to kind of agree to that and ‘Okay, let’s progress this forward.’ And that’s when talks started to get a bit meatier.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Gorilla Position with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.