Wade Barrett made an appearance on WWE 2K’s Even Stronger Podcast to discuss a wide range of topics.
During the interview, Barrett discussed how he would have handled backstage “political situations” differently early in his career. Here are the highlights:
How he would have handled things differently now:
“Well, it’s kind of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I’ll get it out of the way now. I wish I had the brain I have now on the young body and potential I had back then because I would have done things a little differently. I would have handled certain political situations differently, things that were completely beyond the realm of my comprehension in 2010. I wasn’t able to understand how the industry worked behind the scenes.
“The other side of that is the positive side where you’ve got to remember at that point in my career. I’d probably been training to be a wrestler for about seven years at that point. I’d been all over Europe at that point. Obviously, I’d come over to the US and been in the developmental systems in Ohio Valley Wrestling and Florida Championship Wrestling, getting paid very little and making big sacrifices to try and chase this dream.”
His mindset at the time:
“So, the really cool thing about the era that you see [in WWE 2K23] this young, fresh-faced Wade Barrett, that was the point where I knew that no matter what happened from there, all my sacrifices had been worth it. I’d made it to WWE, I’d made it to the pay-per-views, I’d made it to Raw and SmackDown, I was a focal point of the show in 2010. So, really, it felt like a big weight lifted off my shoulders that I wasn’t going to have to go back to the UK with my tail in between my legs, having failed to make it and having to go back to my regular old job and beg them for my job back. I think that would have haunted me for life. So, there was a massive feeling of achievement and relief that I got to that point in 2010, and this is the character you get to play with now on WWE 2K23.”
(H/T to Fightful for the quotes)
