Wade Barrett On How Long It Would Take For Him To Make An In-Ring Return
Wade Barrett recently spoke with BT Sport and discussed if his in-ring career in professional wrestling is completely over. Barrett mentioned that he has some left in the tank and if the right opportunity arises that he would be ready to go.
"We're pro wrestlers; it's never done," Barrett said. "That's the truth. There's definitely some left in the tank. I didn't want to be someone who retired because I had to or retire because I wasn't able to do it anymore and was embarrassing myself. Similarly, I was burned out when I left. There's definitely a lot left in the tank."
"I'm only 40 years old," Barrett added. "40 sounds quite old in the sporting world, but in the world of sports entertainment it's clearly not. You can look at people like The Hurt Business at the moment – I think all of those guys are older than me and are doing some of the best work of their career. Sheamus is older than me. There are guys who are on the main stage of their shows right now who are older than me, so I feel like if I want to or the time is right or an opportunity that excites me comes up, then I'm close to being ready to go.
"I'm not in ring shape at the moment, but I'm in good shape. To get in ring shape I will probably need three months of knocking out that ring rust to step back in the ring, but currently my focus is purely on the announcing booth in NXT."
Barrett hasn't performed in a WWE ring since he was released back in 2016. Following his release from WWE, Barrett decided to pursue acting and ultimately took a year off from professional wrestling before returning to work in various promotions for the next two years. Barrett was announced to be joining the broadcast team with NWA in December 2019, but the company was hit hard during the pandemic. The last set of NWA: POWERRR tapings was on January 26, 2020, with the last episode from those tapings airing on May 12th. Barrett made his return to WWE when he joined the broadcast team in NXT on the August 26 show.
You can check out the video clip below.
"We're pro-wrestlers, we're never done, there's definitely some left in the tank."
"I feel like if I want to, or the opportunity that excites me comes up I'll be ready."@StuBennett won't rule out a return to the ring, but his focus is on commentary in NXT... for now ?? pic.twitter.com/iwjECVXB1P
? WWE on BT Sport (@btsportwwe) October 15, 2020