Wade Barrett On His Run As King Barrett, "There Really Wasn't Any Effort Put In"

This WrestleZone Radio exclusive features WZ Daily’s Nick Hausman interviewing former WWE Superstar Wade Barrett, real name Stu Bennett.

Stu’s appearance is in conjunction with his upcoming lead role in the movie Vengeance.

On if he thinks the WWE King of the Ring still has a place in the WWE landscape:

WB: The title of King of the Ring can be prestigious but if it’s followed up by non-existent writing then it’s pointless. Which I think was the issue in regards to me. The tournament itself is fine, there were some good matches and we got a bit of hype behind it and then it was followed up with three months of two grown men fighting over a toilet plunger. Which, you know, you follow something up with writing like that and it’s not going to lead to anything good. The title of King of the Ring is fine on it’s own but you have to follow it up with good writing.

On his reaction to being told he was going to be King of the Ring and being given a notoriously bad King’s outfit:

WB: It was thrown together very last minute. I think we did the quarter finals the week before and then we came back the next week and did the actual semi-finals and the finals on a one hour special on the WWE Network. Probably about forty minutes before the show went live we didn’t even know who was winning the tournament. We knew that it was going to be me and Neville in the finals. It all honesty, a complete lack of thought had gone into it. I was given Booker T’s old outfit from ten years earlier. Obviously it didn’t look great. There was no follow up to it with a storyline or anything like that. If it was meant as an attempt to push me or get me over I think there really wasn’t any effort put in from the word, “Go.”

Some of the topics in this interview include:

His role in the upcoming film Vengeance
The differences in putting together a fight for a movie as opposed to a pro wrestling match
Why he doesn’t think the Bullhammer Elbow was an effective finishing move
How he presents himself as a babyface as opposed to a heel
WWE’s decision not to turn him face once the Bad News Barrett character got over
Why WWE doesn’t always push wrestlers the way fans want them pushed
What it was like working with the three other members of the League of Nations
Whether he was actively pitching ideas when he was given gimmicks that weren’t working
Plans that he and the others members of the League of Nations had for the stable that never saw the light of day
Whether he noticed that Rusev and Lana had heat on them from WWE management during the League of Nations run
Conor McGregor’s outspoken comments about Brock Lesnar and WWE Superstars
WWE’s decision to make part time wrestlers exempt from the WWE Wellness Policy
His King of the Ring win and what role he thinks the King of the Ring could serve in WWE today
His future pro wrestling plans
More…