Wade Barrett Says Nexus Run In WWE “Died Prematurely”
Wade Barrett is reflecting on The Nexus group in WWE while commenting that it ended before it should have.
These days, Wade Barrett is a WWE announcer who is thriving on the Raw brand with Michael Cole. Barrett rejoined WWE as an announcer in August 2020. After a few years there, he was moved to Smackdown last year and now he’s on Raw.
While Barrett has said he’s not officially retired as a wrestler, he hasn’t wrestled in WWE since August 2015. During his WWE career, Barrett was a 5-time Intercontinental Champion, as well as King of the Ring in 2015. Barrett gained popularity with his “Bad News” persona, but perhaps he’ll be remembered most for being the leader of The Nexus group.
The Nexus debuted on WWE in June 2010 after they were part of the new NXT competition show where “new” wrestlers had WWE mentors. Wade Barrett won that first NXT season that also featured Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson), Skip Sheffield (Ryback), Justin Gabriel, Heath Slater, Darren Young, David Otunga and Antonio Tarver.
Barrett quickly ascended to the main event picture while feuding with top stars like John Cena and Randy Orton. However, by the end of 2010, The Nexus was no more, so they really didn’t have a long run in the company.
Wade Barrett believes The Nexus died prematurely despite having exciting moments in WWE
In an interview with the Even Stronger podcast, Wade Barrett spoke about how people still talk to him about The Nexus because of the impact they had in WWE.
“Nexus for all of us who were in the group was just a mind-blowing experience. It’s something that even though I think it died prematurely, it’s something that people still want to talk to me about this day. It probably only lasted six months really Nexus but people still to this day want to talk about the time we ripped up the ring, the time we attacked John Cena. The time we beat up Vince McMahon and ran the company. Really exciting times.
“It completely changed the trajectory of my life. To have a massive impact on your debut like that. You can’t really ask for too much more as a young and coming star and I hope that helped show the company ‘Hey, there’s a way forward here to debut dominant young groups of stars,’ which we saw with the Shield a few years later. They knocked it out of the park so maybe we were the catalyst for some of that.”
What Barrett said about The Shield is what a lot of fans think about the subject too. Two years after The Nexus died, The Shield trio of Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns & Dean Ambrose debuted on the main roster. The difference was they won nearly every match they had and were dominant, which was better than how The Nexus was booked by WWE.