Wade Barrett
British professional wrestler / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stuart Alexander "Stu" Bennett (born 10 August 1980), better known by his ring name Wade Barrett, is an English professional wrestling commentator, actor, former professional wrestler and former bare-knuckle boxer. He is signed to WWE, where is a colour commentator on the SmackDown brand. As an active wrestler he was also known under the ring names Bad News Barrett and King Barrett. He is a five-time Intercontinental Champion, the winner of the first season of NXT, and the 2015 King of the Ring.
Wade Barrett | |
---|---|
Birth name | Stuart Alexander Bennett |
Born | (1980-08-10) 10 August 1980 (age 43) Penwortham, England |
Professional wrestling career | |
Ring name(s) | Bad News Barrett[1] King Barrett[1] Lawrence Knight Pinnacle[2] Stu Bennett Stu Sanders Wade Barrett[1] |
Billed height | 6 ft 7 in (201 cm)[1] |
Billed weight | 246 lb (112 kg)[1] |
Billed from | Manchester, England Preston, England |
Trained by | Al Snow Jon Richie |
Debut | 2004 |
Retired | 2016 |
Barrett was born in Penwortham. He lived in Preston until he was six. He then moved to Wales.
After winning NXT in 2010, he made his debut on the main roster on the June 7 episode of Raw as the leader of The Nexus.[3] He was later removed from being the leader of Nexus after CM Punk gave him the opportunity to regain the leadership saying that if he won a three-way steel cage match to determine the number one contender for the WWE Championship, but during the match Punk came down to ringside and took off Barrett's Nexus armband, which symbolically removed him from the Nexus, and he went on to lose the match.[4] He then joined a new group, The Corre.
On 28 April 2016 episode of Raw, Barrett competed in the 2015 King of the Ring tournament. In the tournament, he defeated Dolph Ziggler in the first round after Sheamus distracted Ziggler.[5] The next night on the WWE Network, Barrett defeated R-Truth in the semi-finals and defeated Neville in the finals win the tournament and become King of the Ring.[6] On 6 May 2016, Barrett was released from WWE and retired from wrestling.[7][8] He returned to WWE as a commentator for NXT in September 2020,[9] and was called up to the main roster again two years later.[10]