Will Wade Barrett Be Missed in WWE?

Wade Barrett showed plenty of potential early in his WWE career, but fans are left wondering what could have been as he plans to leave the company this summer.

Oftentimes in professional sports, we see a young athlete splash onto the scene with so much natural skills and abilities, along with the potential that radiates from them in their debuts. Sometimes the aftermath leads to a legend being born and other times, we see that flame fizzle out quicker than when it ignited.

In the case of Wade Barrett, it just felt like someone was dumping a bucket of water onto the candle every few months. Each time the WWE creative team would give him an interesting storyline or a run with Intercontinental Championship, there would be some type of injury. It’s makes it a lot that much sadder when news came out that Barrett would leave the company later this summer.

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It wasn’t long ago when we were seeing a physically intimidating six-foot-seven, 245-pound Brit who stood beside then-World Heavyweight Champion Chris Jericho as part of the first season of NXT in 2010. In the weeks that followed, he showed how good he could turn a promo around and was definitely showing his in-ring abilities well.

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But what made Barrett stand out after winning that first season of NXT gave Barrett the chance to be a leader of the Nexus stable – with all of the first season contenders of NXT. (Well, except for Daniel Bryan after the whole tie strangulation situation, but that’s not important). Fans were seeing someone evolving into one of the top heels in the WWE.

Now the creative team then had him kicked out of Nexus by CM Punk, starting another faction with the Corre and then went solo. Between 2013 and now, there have been several injuries that ranged from an accidental separated shoulder to the current pinched nerve that has kept him out of action for several weeks.

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What might have been a positive turn in his WWE career as part of an interesting stable in the League of Nations, fans once again see another injury set back Barrett’s push in the WWE. Maybe he’s needed to take time away from the company and professional wrestling overall to properly recover and maybe retool and rebuild to become better overall.

One would hope that we could see Barrett return to the WWE, but with how he’s been booked inconsistently since the Nexus and Corre storylines, it’s highly unlikely he would want to return and be lost in the mid-card shuffle. It’s sad knowing that he had so much potential of being a big main event heel and was even being considered the favorite to be the first English wrestler to win the WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

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But we are left to wonder what could have been if Barrett didn’t suffer the injuries that he has sustained in the past three or four years. The flame that once blazed in NXT and the early months in the WWE are now smoking embers that will settle to ashes this summer; with many of us grieving another talent leaving WWE sooner than we would have hoped.