You've been back for nearly four years now. How are you enjoying your role as a commentator?

I love commentating for WWE. You're right, I started about four years ago. I would say in my professional life working in many different disciplines and industries and roles within different industries, this is the happiest I've ever been. I Love commentating for WWE. I think it was a long-term goal of mine even while I was in the ring. It was something I did a little bit of in about 2009, and 2010, and I've done bits and pieces here and there, but to be a full-time commentator for WWE, is absolutely a dream come true.

What's it like working alongside Corey Graves on SmackDown?

Corey Graves is awesome. So, I've been really lucky in my time with WWE as a commentator. I started off with Vic Joseph in NXT for a couple of years then I did about 18 months with The Goat - Michael Cole, both of whom were absolutely awesome and helped improve me. But working with Corey is a very different feel with him because he has a very similar background to me. Cole and Vic Joseph are not really wrestlers, even though Michael Cole has done a little bit here and there in his past.

But Corey Graves is as experienced as I was in the ring. Very similar personalities. I think we both have an affinity for the bad guys in wrestling. That's something I always loved and career-wise I always was a bad guy. So, we bonded on that and his ability to go from being a colour guy, which is what I do, to a play-by-play guy has been outstanding. I love working with Corey. We've been together for about four months now. I think we're getting better and better every week.

I think we're starting to hit our groove. The last couple of weeks I think is the best we've ever been together and it's going to continue that way. So very happy working with Corey, he's awesome.

What led to the decision to get into commentary upon your return to WWE and how has that changed the way that you view wrestling?

I did a little bit of commentary as I mentioned in 2009 in Florida Championship Wrestling, which was the development system of the day. I was working under a guy, the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes. An absolute legend of the industry. And he gave me that opportunity. So, I knew 15 years ago that at some point I would want to be a commentator.

And obviously walking away from WWE and a wrestling role back in 2016, I had to question what am I going to do with the rest of my life? What do I want to do? And I always knew that at some point I would want to commentate. So, I think it was a combination of I'm getting older, I'm beat up, probably there isn't too much left in the tank in terms of being an in-ring guy so how can I contribute to this industry going forward? And the obvious answer to me was to get involved in commentary.

I started doing some things on the independent scene in wrestling. I think WWE took notice of that and gave me a call and asked me to come back and it's been fireworks ever since and a lot of fun.

You've managed to make the transition into commentary seem very seamless. But what would you say is the biggest challenge of that role now?

Okay, a couple of things. So normally in wrestling, when you want to be an in-ring guy, you want to make everything all about you. It's about grabbing that spotlight, making every second on camera count and making sure that when people go home, they're talking about what you did. So, there's kind of an ego thing involved when you transition over to commentary in that it's not about me anymore. I'm there to enhance other people's characters and storylines and hopefully add a little seasoning to the show as opposed to making it all about me.

And probably the other thing that's difficult about being a commentator, let's say we have a two-hour show or a three-hour show. As an in-ring guy, as a wrestler, you've maybe got to worry about 10- or 15-minutes’ worth of that show. Now I've got to worry about two or three hours. I've got to have something to say constantly. I don't know what Corey Graves is going to ask me. And whatever I come out with, guess what? There are millions of people listening to this, it's getting beamed around the world live, I better have something good to say. And I think to go from being switched on for 10 or 15 minutes a week for this TV show to being switched on for two to three hours and constantly having something logical and important to say to enhance a storyline, that's probably a pretty difficult transition.

What's been the biggest difference for you behind the SmackDown commentary table in terms of being behind the commentary table versus being in the ring?

Yeah, I'd say just that. It's not about my storylines anymore. Whereas I used to have a very pointed idea about what I had to talk about. Okay, I'm this character, I'm feuding with this wrestler at the moment over this championship, it’s relatively easy to focus on what you need to talk about. At this point on SmackDown, I need to be an expert on about 50 different characters. I need to know their backgrounds. I need to know their motivations. I need to know their history. Who did they compete with three years ago? Why is that tying into the match they're having today? What about that injury they had six years ago to their neck that this other guy is targeting? And I need to know what happened in recent weeks with each of the individual storylines too. So, there's just a mass of information that you're required to remember and bring up at a moment's notice when Corey Graves throws the ball to me, I've got to come out with something relevant. So that's probably the biggest difference.

You've done both raw and SmackDown commentary, which show do you actually prefer to call and why?

Well, it doesn't make too much difference because I think all of the shows and I'll include NXT on this. I love calling them all. So, if they gave me a call tomorrow and said “hey, Wade, you got to go to NXT and call NXT from now on”, I'd be very happy with that. Same with Raw. I'd say the one difficulty with Raw is the fact that it is a three-hour show versus NXT and SmackDown, which are two-hour shows. There's a certain exhaustion that can come from doing commentary for three hours that I don't really get in two hours. So, I say two hours for me personally has been the perfect size or length of the show to commentate where I feel like I'm hitting a 10 all the way through. There can be times on a three-hour show, it's such a massive beast that you can kind of slow down at some point. You may need a couple of energy drinks or something like that to get you through. So, I'd say just mechanically speaking, the two-hour shows are definitely more in my wheelhouse.

There's been a lot of major changes to the product in recent months in WWE and fans have been enjoying watching it on TV. As a commentator, what are the main changes that you've noticed to the product?

Well, I've noticed that and I'll compare my time as a commentator to my time in the ring. And I think there are a lot more surprises these days. And we'll call it the Triple H era, the Paul Levesque era, whatever it's being called now. I think something we're really good at and it reminds me of being a fan back in the late 90s in the attitude era, you can't miss a show at the moment. It feels as a fan and even as a commentator when I'm at home watching the other shows, I feel like I cannot miss it because something big is going to happen every week.

There was a time when I was an in-ring guy during the kind of early 2010s when the show at times felt a little formulaic. It felt a little obvious that these two guys are going to be feuding with each other for the next four months and we're going to have six different rematches between them. We're going to have different variations of how the match ends, but I know what's going to happen. If I miss an episode, it's probably not going to be that important. Now it feels like if you miss even one 15-minute segment between commercials, you could miss something massive. We watched Raw last night and the Wyatt 6 stuff, every time there is a show over the next few months, there is going to be a big development in that storyline.

And the same with the bloodline stuff on SmackDown. It feels like every week there is something massive going on. And that's really exciting to me as a commentator. It keeps me guessing, it keeps me motivated and excited. And I think you can probably see from our viewing figures and the people attending the live shows, we're constantly selling out at the moment. I think it really has people hooked in and it's keeping people guessing and being hyper-creative with our script writers and the people who are working behind the scenes on stuff. So, I'd say the management currently is taking us in a really good direction and the rewards are there for everyone to see.

Who has been your favourite person to watch in the ring in the past year?

I would probably say LA Knight. I think he's somebody who I really attached my wagon to quite early on during his time in NXT. He was somebody I've been aware of for about ten years in the wrestling world and he's been making waves all over the world for whatever reason. He didn't get an opportunity in WWE until fairly recently. But he is a guy who's just got it. He looks like a star, he's great in the ring, he is A plus on the mic, has so much charisma, and character, and he's a guy that can just light the place on fire with 10 seconds on the mic. And you've seen the kind of reactions he gets. So, for me personally, I love seeing somebody like that. Fairly late in his career, he isn’t a spring chicken, even though he's got a lot left in the tank, but he's a guy that is absolutely getting his rewards now. I've enjoyed being ringside, going along for the ride, feeling the energy of arenas pick up when he walks out. I've been thrilled to kind of set a ringside watching his journey and watching him grow and grow. And I don't think he's anywhere near the peak yet. That's the most exciting part.

A few fans will remember you once formed the Empire tag team with Drew McIntyre early in the FCW days. Now McIntyre's challenged Priest for the World Heavyweight title, what areas do you think Drew has grown the most in the years since?

Back when we were the Empire, we were a tag team in Florida Championship Wrestling. So, this would have been about 2008, 2009, something like that. Drew at that point in time, we kind of just moved over from the UK. I'm about five or six years older than Drew, I think. This doesn't sound like much now, but back when I was probably 27 and Drew was maybe 21, that's a huge difference in life experience more than anything. So, I'd moved away from my parents' house. I've had a career in the UK, working in London and working in offices, being a manager and kind of being a grownup. Whereas Drew had never left his parents' house. He'd kind of done some stuff in university, but he was still a kid.

So, I very much felt when we were living together and working together, I was almost like a big brother role for him because he would be making some mistakes and doing things wrong. The most noticeable thing for me has been just the growth of Drew away from the cameras and the kind of man he has become and the kind of leader he has become. He's just a no-nonsense guy. At this point, he's completely focused. So that's something I personally noticed in the difference from the days of the Empire to today.

And I think everybody who's a fan has seen the growth of Drew from when he first debuted on SmackDown in 2008 with Dave Taylor all the way through to now. It's night and day. It's a different person. Physically, he looks completely different, but just his confidence, his poise on the mic, his brilliance in the ring, just seeing that growth of him as a man and a performer over the last 15 years has been really cool to watch as a friend and as a fan of Drew.

From a professional perspective, what are your thoughts on how Drew actually represents the UK in WWE now? How is he doing?

I think Drew has been fantastic. I think he's one of those guys who can do it all. He can be the big hero as we saw in Glasgow and the whole city or whole country is going nuts for him. He can be the most vile human being imaginable, which is what we saw a few days later in Chicago at CM Punk's home. And he really is fantastic in the ring. He looks great. He's a complete pro when it comes to representing WWE in the media and then on the mic, I think in the last 12 months, Drew has hit a whole new level on the mic where he's potentially the number one guy in the entire industry when it comes to talking.

I would say historically that was Drew's biggest weak point, especially when we first moved over to the U.S. He wasn't confident on the mic. He had a lot of difficulties with his accent. People couldn't understand him. I was having to translate for Drew when we'd be going into restaurants and things like that but his growth in all areas has been massive. And I think he's the perfect guy to have become the first-ever British WWE World Champion. I think they knocked it out of the park with that guy and he's going to keep on getting better and delivering over the next few years.

You also worked with Cody Rhodes. Did you know he would be the future world champion at the time? And could you ever have imagined that he'd become the man of WWE?

So, I'll say this about Cody and I worked a lot with his father, the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes, is the guy I owe a lot to. I've always been a big fan of Cody Rhodes, the performer, even in 2008, and 2009. And then when I started working with him in 2011, 2012 kind of period, we tagged up and did a couple of, I think we did a Survivor series together and maybe a Summer Slam together as a tag team. He's the guy to me who's always been brilliant. And that potential has always been there. I think with Cody, the biggest thing he was lacking maybe 10 years or so ago was an opportunity. I don't think people in management looked at Cody and saw him as a guy who could be capable of pulling the entire train.

So, I think the potential was always there but once an opportunity came along Cody grabbed every opportunity that came his way after about 2015 and he's just gone from strength to strength.

Did I ever foresee him being the number one guy in the entire industry? I can't honestly say I did because it's so rare that anyone gets to that level. If you look over the last 10 or 15 years in our industry, you can perhaps only say Randy Orton, John Cena, Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes. They are probably the four who've actually achieved that level of superstardom. So no, I didn't see that coming. I absolutely thought he'd be capable of it, but it needed to be a perfect storm of opportunities and then Cody being motivated enough to make them count. And thankfully all those things happened.

Back in 2015, you became WWE royalty by winning King of the Ring. How will wearing the crown impact this year's winner?

So, I think as long as this year's winners, Gunther and Nia Jax, do everything completely differently from how I did it, they will do really well. So, one of the cool things we mentioned was the Triple H era a little earlier, one of the cool things for me about this Triple H era is that things aren't wasted. And I think when I won King of the Ring in 2015, and probably for a couple of King of the Rings prior to me like Seamus had it, a couple of other guys had it too. I don't think anyone ever really capitalized on that. And that was management decision-making. "Hey, we've put this crown on this guy. This guy is the king of the ring. Are we going to highlight him?" No, we're not. We're going to move on. We're going to have this guy go out and kind of compete in what I felt were meaningless feuds and very little storytelling and very little to really hook viewers in. But I think this is a very different era, as I mentioned. And I think Gunther and Nia Jax are going to have really, really strong 12 months with the King and Queen of the Ring behind them and I think the current creative crew and the management team are going to make sure of that. So, I'm really excited to see where those guys go and I'm glad that the King and indeed Queen of the Ring tournaments have got this added shine to them, added gloss to them, which they deserve. Because it's a great achievement, it's a great accolade, it's got tremendous history. And now I think we're going to maximize that.

After spending most of your adult life in the professional wrestling business, what are your feelings on Logan Paul joining WWE and becoming a champion so quickly? Does that bother you all and do you think it's deserved?

So normally when guys from the outside come in and try and compete in our industry, it is an embarrassment. It's normally pretty obvious that these guys are not very good. It's pretty obvious that we're having to kind of roll out the red carpet and make sure they look good, usually at the expense of the guys who are dedicating their lives to being in the ring and they've trained for years. So that's a historic thing. I don't think we'll ever do that again. Not in this era anyway, because someone like Logan Paul has come in and he's got this tremendous number of eyeballs on him from the outside world. So business-wise it makes sense but what has impressed everyone is A, his natural athleticism and B, more importantly, Logan Paul's work ethic. In the matches he's put on since coming in, I think he's only had five or six matches. Every single one of them has been outstanding. And I've been lucky enough to be ringside calling a couple. Probably his biggest match of his career, I would suggest was against Roman Reigns at one of the crown jewels a couple of years ago.

No one knew just how good Logan Paul could be prior to that. He'd never had that level of spotlight put on him in our industry. He absolutely smashed it to the point where Roman Reigns who had been on this unbeatable run for a couple of years at that point as WWE champion, you genuinely bought with about five minutes left in that match that Logan Paul was going to do it. Logan Paul was going to win. That is because he is so good in the ring. He is such a natural performer. You just cannot complain when a guy like that is given the spotlight because he deserves it. If the cards had fallen differently and Logan Paul hadn't been this YouTube star and hadn't been this boxer and hadn't been this business mogul and all the other ventures that he does. If he'd have had that passion from being very young and decided I'm going to dedicate my life to WWE and being a wrestler, he'd have made it anyway. And seeing a guy like that achieve things and come along and help our show and bring more eyeballs to our product is great. So, no beef at all with Logan Paul. I would say I'm actually a fan of his and I've really enjoyed everything he's done on the show.

What did you learn from feuding with three future WWE Hall of Famers in John Cena, CM Punk, and Randy Orton so early in your career?

So, I'd say CM Punk I really didn't do too much with. Ours was more a bit of verbal jousting. There was very little physical between CM Punk and me, which is a regret of mine. I think it's something we should have run with in 2010, and 2011 when we were kind of beefing over the future of the Nexus.

I'd say working with John Cena and Randy Orton though, and that was kind of right out of the gate for me in 2010, so I've been wrestling for a few years at that point. I've been through the developmental system but most people only really became aware of Wade Barrett when I burst onto the scene in 2010 on Raw and SmackDown.

So, to go from this nobody to suddenly being the guy who was beating up the two biggest names in the industry at the time,John Cena and Randy Orton, that was massive for me. And there was clearly going to be a steep learning curve going from competing with guys who maybe had one to two years of experience in development to working with the absolute best guys on the planet. And it was a steep learning curve for me. That six-month run from June, July to December of 2010 is probably the toughest period of my entire career. And realizing I'm not as good as these guys, I'm not as experienced as these guys, but guess what? I've got a 30-minute main event pay-per-view match coming up and I better be able to deliver something good here. So, it was a steep learning curve. I probably was wrapped with anxiety every single day of that run for six months but what an experience and what a crazy change of lifestyle to go from a complete nobody where I can walk down the street to within a few months being recognized everywhere I go. So, it was a pretty wild time for me.

Speaking of John Cena, some fans criticized him for burying talent during his Super Cena run. Do you feel like you were a victim of this at all?

Yeah, I'd say for me personally, I've gone on record before saying that the Nexus Summer Slam match in 2010 should not have ended the way it did. And I don't think you will find a single person of note in the wrestling industry who will agree with how that match ended, which is where John Cena beat the Nexus at our first real test. How much of that was down to John Cena, I don't know. I think the problem we had at the time in WWE was that management had a philosophy that we're going to make one, two, maybe three stars and everybody else on the roster is essentially cannon fodder for these top names.

So, it might have been a Randy or an Undertaker or a John Cena, for example. The rest of us were an irrelevance. We were just there as backing dancers for the top names. So that was just a management thing. I'm thankful that today that is not the case. It's not like we just have these handpicked two or three guys that are important. Now it feels like everyone up and down the card is treated as a star, is treated as important. They're given good writing, and opportunities to do storytelling, and therefore we don't have these kind of dead segments in Raw and SmackDown of things that really don't matter. I think that is where people were tuning out. So, I can't really blame John Cena for what he was doing. If I was in his position and management came to me and said, "Hey, you're going to beat everybody on the roster, every single night for the next 10 years", I'd probably say, yeah, that's great.

Awesome, let's go with it. But that, as I say, was just a philosophy at the time that I don't think many people agree with, but I don't necessarily think John Cena is personally to blame for that.

You've said before that Davey Boy Smith versus Bret Hart for the Intercontinental Championship at Summer Slam 1992 was your favourite match of all time. As a five-time winner of that belt, what was that feeling like when you won the title for the first time?

So that was a really cool moment for me. And I remember that moment, I picked up that championship. So obviously as a kid, you dream about certain things. You dream about just being in the ring. You dream about having a t-shirt or being on a video game and having action figures of yourself made and stuff like that. And I'd say personally on that checklist, becoming the Intercontinental Champion was right up there on the list for me. As you mentioned, as an 11-year-old, or 12-year-old I think I was, I watched Davey Boy and Bret Hart and that completely captivated me more than anything.

The fact that I knew this was not a British production, I knew these people that I was watching on my TV, they were nothing like the guys I was seeing around Preston, for example. These guys look muscular, long hair, they look cool, they got tans and even Davey Boy was like “that guy's from the same part of the world as me? This is crazy.” So, I mean, seeing him perform and going out there and become one of the absolute biggest stars on the planet at some level must have told me in my head, hey, you can do this too. So, I'm following in his footsteps. And when you look back at the history of the Intercontinental Championship, I think pretty much all the greatest of all time have held that championship. So, to be in that bracket and to have my name etched in history five times, is really cool for me and I'd say that was the kind of highlight of my career. Especially winning it the very first time.

You're always known for being a great talker as well. Who currently in the locker room do you feel is thriving in that regard?

Okay, so there are a ton of great talkers these days. I would say in my era and prior to my era, you could really stand out by being a good talker. And that was something that helped me massively. I always felt that I was somebody who could go toe to toe with anyone with the mic, but I also felt that 75 % of the roster in my day was not very good with the mic. These days, I think 75 % of the roster is outstanding with the mic. And so, it's definitely a very different era. L.A. Knight obviously jumps out as somebody who's superb on the mic. And also, as we've already mentioned, Drew McIntyre's up there. He's hit a whole new vein of form in the last 12 months where he's kind of unbeatable on the mic these days and he's really tapped into his character. And then in a very different way, I'd say Cody Rhodes as well. He is the ultimate professional. He's obviously inherited whatever genetic brilliance his father Dusty Rhodes had when he came to the mic, who is perhaps the greatest talker of all time. So, Cody's up there too. I think it's hard to find a bad talker in this day and age in WWE. Which is awesome and shows the progression and the advancement of performers in WWE.

The wrestling world is still talking about CM Punk. You've experienced him throughout both of his runs in WWE now. What is different about him this time around and how he's operating backstage?

So, I'd say punk is older now, as we all are. There's some maturity that comes with that. I have a theory that men are at their most angry between the ages of about 16 to 25. I think there's just a natural anger that builds up in men where we've got testosterone pumping through us. I'm sure historically that was the time you would go off to battle and fight wars and all that stuff. But I think CM Punk as a young man versus CM Punk now.

He's still prickly. He's still a tough guy to deal with. He's still very passionate about the industry. I just think he has probably, in his old age, learned a little more diplomacy. That's not to say he's coming in and he's the life and soul of the party and he's everyone's best friend. Absolutely not. He's just less prickly than he was perhaps 10 or 15 years ago. And I think maybe a part of that is that he realizes now that a lot of the guys in the locker room, a lot of the guys that are now his peers that he's potentially going to be in the ring with, these guys grew up idolizing him. He's no longer the guy who's competing with these guys. These guys want to learn from him. They respect him enough after what he's achieved and his abilities and the way he's done things his own way and he's blazed his own path. I think people like that about him. I think he probably realizes, hey, I don't have to fight with these guys constantly anymore. They're kind of already on my side. I can help them. I can help develop the industry to what we all want it to be, which is the number one form of entertainment on the planet.

What are you looking forward to the most in your career to come? Are there any plans on the horizon that you thought of?

Okay, so obviously my focus is commentary. It's something I love doing. I feel like I have a long way to go in terms of reaching my potential. There's a number of things I really want to do. The biggest one of all, I want to call a WrestleMania. Now I was disappointed that I wasn't calling this past WrestleMania. I would very much like that opportunity to do it. So hopefully next year I get a chance, if not next year, sometime in the future. So, I absolutely see my future at the desk, calling WWE shows be it NXT, Raw, or SmackDown. It's something I'm highly passionate about. It's something I'm very appreciative that I've had the opportunity to do at the top level. But like I say, I feel like I've just scratched the surface of what I can deliver. I want to keep growing, keep learning from more experienced guys and keep developing my own skill set and then hopefully, like I say, get to that point where I'm calling WrestleManias.

You also have a background in bare-knuckle fighting, which is known to a few wrestling fans. Was there any interest in taking up mixed martial arts to pursue a career in UFC, given you have a background in that?

So, I'd say when I was younger, UFC wasn't the behemoth that it is today. I'd say in the kind of late 90s when I was figuring out, I was just kind of doing university, what am I going to do with my life? I knew I was athletic. I knew I was a big, strong guy and I could do a number of things if I wanted to. UFC was really kind of a hidden fight league that was illegal in most states. And it was probably never at that point, at least to anyone looking from the outside, going to be as big as it is today.

It felt like a bit of a flash in the pan, a bit of a freak show. So, it's not something I ever really thought about seriously. I did think about becoming a boxer. That was something I was really into as well and I was going to some boxing training schools for a while, but ultimately, I made the decision, what am I more passionate about? Is it boxing or is it professional wrestling? And it was really no contest. So, once I figured that out, then it was a question of right now, how do I make this pathway to WWE? Where do I find that's going to have a training school? And that was not as easy back then as it is today. I don't want to sound like back in my day it was tough, but the internet was terrible back then and they just simply didn't have many schools in the UK to train you how to wrestle. So, it took a lot of work just to figure out where to even get started back in those days. Whereas I think now if you go online, you can probably find a wrestling school not too far from your house and take it from there. So yeah, things are very different.

You've also dabbled in the film industry during your time away from wrestling. Did you find that transition seamless?

Yeah, so I was very lucky when I left WWE. I'd done a couple of movies with WWE Studios. So, I had a bit of experience. I also very quickly moved into working with a group called Evolutionary Films that did the Vengeance movies or I Am Vengeance movies with me. So, I kind of got very lucky in landing those roles and I felt like I took to it like a duck to water. I think there's a natural performance element that you develop as a wrestler. There's a lot more improv in wrestling and one of the hard things I found going to do fight scenes for example in movies is how specifically choreographed everything is to the point where you cannot put your foot an inch to the left here. It has to be right here and this punch needs to go three millimeters past this guy's left cheekbone and you're doing a whole fight scene like that which wrestling is nothing like that. It's very much a more free form of fighting and improvisation. Yeah, there were definitely some things I had to learn and develop and realize I had to slow down and we can shoot this 10 times if we need to get it right, it's not one take and we're done like in wrestling but something I really enjoyed and something I'm planning to do more of in the future. I think there are a lot of people in the wrestling world who would really enjoy acting, especially in action movie-type roles. It's just an extension of what we do already in WWE, just a fine-tuned version.

Does the fact that WWE, with it now running major events in the UK, ever give you the itch to get back inside the ring to fight in the UK?

100%. And anytime I get asked this question, if I could have one match for the remainder of my days on this planet and you're allowed one more match, who would it be? And it would absolutely be me against Drew McIntyre at Wembley Stadium. A sold out Wembley Stadium, I think that is the pinnacle for British wrestling, especially if you're fans of the era back when Davey Boy and Bret Hart competed in 92 at that Summer Slam.

If they dangled that in front of me at any point in time, yeah, absolutely. I'm coming back and I'm having that match sold out at Wembley Stadium. But that is a bit of a pipe dream. It's not something I'm actively pursuing or trying to pursue. I'm fit and healthy, if something came up where, 'Okay, there's a match here, would you be interested in doing it?' If it makes sense to me and I was excited to do it, absolutely, I could. The other thing I would say though, is I look at the kind of schedule that Cody Rhodes has, for example, it's a killer at this point in time for me. I'm 43 years old, not too far from 44. The prospect of physically grinding that kind of schedule month after month after month as a full-time guy, it's not for me at this point in time. I've kind of mentally moved on from that.

We recently saw the King and Queen of the Ring Tournament take place. When reflecting on your particular run as King, how do you feel it went and is there anything that you'd do differently?

Yeah, I'd say personally, I was pretty embarrassed by my run as King of the Ring. I'll be brutally honest here; I didn't enjoy it. I had that momentary excitement when I won the tournament because, okay, this is great. I used to be a fan of King of the Ring as a kid. I used to enjoy those tournaments and some greats had gone before me. I think within two weeks of winning that tournament, I was basically shown by the kind of creativity and direction I was given that this was going nowhere. And I was already at that point in time quite jaded with WWE and the way my career had gone.

And that was kind of the final nail in the coffin for me in terms of deciding I didn't want to continue and when my contract was up, I was going to be out the door. So, I was very disappointed with it. I think it could have been a lot better. But ultimately that comes down to opportunity and creative decisions that are being made. And that's one of the reasons I'm so excited to see what Gunther and Nia Jax are going to do. Because I truly believe they're going to get some really intense storylines out of their stuff. I think it's going to be used to enhance their careers, build their characters, and take them to whole new places. That really is how the King of the Ring should be used, but for me, it wasn't used in the right way, in my opinion, back when I won it.

Nick Aldis has told Metro newspaper before that you were considering a match with him before you left the NWA. What would it take to make that happen now that you're both on Smackdown?

Nick Aldis used to be a wrestler? Wow. No, that's a lie. My first ever singles match in my entire career, I'd done a couple of battle roles and things, but we're talking back in 2004 here, my first ever singles match was against Nick Aldis. It was a place called Purfleet, Essex in a tiny little club called the Fondu Club. We had about 10 people watching us and they all looked bored out of their minds. I don't think they really turned up there to watch wrestling. They turned up because it was a pub, and we just happened to be there.

I have a long history with Nick Aldis. I mean, he's had a hell of a career outside of WWE. Probably in all honesty should have been with WWE about 10 years ago, but the cards didn't fall right for him and I'm thrilled that he's got here in a GM capacity. I know he's still ready to go. Again he's a bit younger than me and absolutely at some point we might see him in a ring for WWE if that's how things turn out but yeah, we did briefly mention NWA he and I having a program together, having a little in ring thing at some point, but very quickly after that conversation happened, I'd say within two or three weeks, the pandemic hit, the world got shut down, NWA shut down for the best part of 12 months and then by the time it all kind of fired up again, I'd been picked up by WWE. So very brief conversations, maybe at some point in the future, we'll see how things turn out.

What are your earliest memories of wrestling as a fan?

My first memory of wrestling, I must have been six or seven years old. I was probably at my granddad's house at the time somewhere in Longridge in Lancashire. And I remember flicking through the channels and I remember seeing there were two British wrestlers on it. It must have been the old world of sport and one guy was trying to rip the mask off another guy. They were hyping up how terrible it would be if this guy's mask got removed.

I assume looking back, it was probably Kendo Nagasaki in the match. He was an old British legend. So that was the first thing I ever saw. I remember being obsessed with it, transfixed by what I was seeing on the TV and then my mum coming in and turning the TV off. She didn't want me watching whatever this was. And then a few years later was the whole WWF at the time, coming in with Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior and British Bulldog, next thing you know, everyone in school is suddenly talking about this phenomenon from the US. You've got to check it out, it was on Sky TV at the time, so it was kind of hard to get. So, we'd be passing VHSs around but I was instantly hooked. Just seeing these guys, the way they looked, their crazy characters, and realizing there's something different about these guys than the people I see in normal life. And whatever these guys are doing, whatever they're performing, I thought it was a real legit fight with these crazy guys, I need more of this and I've been hooked ever since.

Once I convinced my dad to get us some Sky TV, I've been hooked ever since. He slowly got into it though. Razor Ramon became his guy. He hated it at first, but slowly but surely, you'd see him dropping the newspaper down, looking over the top. And next thing you know, he's quoting the bad guy, Razor Ramon.

From a professional point of view, what are your first standout memories of your first steps in the business?

So, I decided in probably 2001 that I wanted to be a wrestler. 2000 -2001 I read Mick Foley's book "Have a Nice Day" and it just resonated with me and I realized wow there is a pathway that a normal guy in college or in university can now actually go and become a wrestler. You're not kind of born into this, you can go and achieve this. I remember reading that and I instantly signed up for my university gym in Liverpool the next day and started pumping iron. I was a very tall but very skinny guy. So, it took me a long time to put some weight on. My plan was, I'm going to put on enough weight and muscle so that when I walk into a wrestling school for the first time, I'm not embarrassed. I'm not the skinny guy. So, I worked out. It probably took me two and a half, three years, till I got to the point where, okay, I look like a wrestler now. Let me go along to this wrestling school. At least I won't be the smallest guy there. And I walked in there and I was by far the tallest. I was also the only guy who apparently had ever heard of a gym.

And I thought to myself, well, why did I spend three years pumping iron? I could have just come on day one. But it turned out it was a good thing and it helped me advance very quickly through the group. So that was my first foray into the world of professional wrestling. I wrestled for about three years in the UK on the independent scene, which was very bad at the time between 2004 and 2007. There just wasn't much happening in the UK. The shows were tiny. The average skill set of British wrestlers was very, very poor at the time. Thankfully, it's a lot better today. And then very quickly, WWE came to town. I sent my information off to them with some pictures of me. They invited me along for a tryout with Drew McIntyre, along Sheamus, a couple of guys that I was wrestling on the scene at the time. And we all got picked up and brought over to the US. So that was kind of the early days for all three of us really.

What's your most embarrassing career moment? You can thank Alistair McGeorge from Metro for that question.

The most embarrassing career moment outside of King of the Ring, which I think in general was quite embarrassing, I would say in 2010, we just debuted as the Nexus, and I had to have a match with Mark Henry and Mark Henry, 400 pounds, fantastic human being, great performer, locker room legend, a guy that a lot of people looked up to as a leader and I was the new guy coming in and I had to go and have a match with Mark Henry.

Now my old finisher was called The Wasteland and it was a fireman's carry where I'd kind of flip them off onto their back afterwards. I was used to doing that against guys who were about at most 250, 260 pounds, something like that. Mark Henry was way too big and I didn't want to do it. But at the time management was insisting here's how you make a huge impact Wade, we need you to do this. I don't want to do it guys. Too bad, you have to do it. Mark Henry didn't want me to do it. Our agent for the match didn't want me to do it. But we tried it during the day, it worked pretty well. And then we tried it in the match and it did not work well. And I almost broke my spine, I landed Mark on top of his head, and he was very upset with me afterwards and this was on live TV, getting beamed around the world. There's something in the world of wrestling that fans love to kind of tweet out and show and they call them botches.

This is when things clearly have gone wrong in the ring. That was probably my career's all-time biggest botch. And probably the thing that at the time was highly embarrassing. It is the new guy coming in trying to make himself good with the world of wrestling in the locker room and veterans like Mark Henry and I came in and dropped him on his head. So yeah, very embarrassing.

Do you feel like they creatively cut off the Bad News Barrett a little too soon?

I do 100 % and that was something to me that kind of really jaded me to the industry at the time. This was just a couple of weeks prior to the King of the Rings stuff that was the final nail in the coffin. But yeah, I'd say with Bad News Barrett, it absolutely got cut off too early. I think it was designed to be a guy that was hated and initially, he was hated, he was booed, but then it became very entertaining and people latched onto it and everyone started cheering me.

So, the natural thing to do there when that happens is, sometimes organically guys go from being the bad guy to the good guy, even if you don't intend it. And I think in this day and age, in this era now, we would run with that. Hey, everyone loves this guy for whatever reason, even though he's being horrible to them, they're all cheering him. I think now we would run with it.

The solution back then was to take everything away that made the character interesting in the first place so now they're going to boo him again. Which I thought was a horrible philosophy. I didn't agree with it at the time and I think to be getting the kind of reactions I was getting as Bad News Barrett, and expecting my career to move forward because of those reactions, to have that all taken away and essentially go back to zero again, for no good reason in my mind, was kind of soul destroying. It was something that really upset me. And it felt in fairness like it was the second time in my career that had happened.

I felt like that happened in Nexus which had been taken away too quickly and replaced with something that wasn't good in the core. And I felt that this had happened a second time now with Bad News Barrett, which had been taken away from me again too early and been replaced with something that just wasn't good in King Barrett. So, it left me pretty unhappy and at that point, I was kind of resolute that it was time to move, the face wasn't fitting for the time being. I need to go and do something else.

From King of the Ring to Bad News Barrett to the IC title, you've left your mark on this business for sure. Any regrets at all?

I don't personally have any regrets. I feel like I did a lot of the things that I wanted to do. The obvious answer is I didn't become a world champion, which naturally was the peak of what we're trying to do. I was trying to climb that ladder and get there. I don't feel that things that didn't play out in my career were necessarily down to me. I think we're in a team industry here where you are reliant on people in the creative team or people in management making decisions that are going to work out positively for you as a performer.

I had opportunities to be moved up to a new level, and I had opportunities to be put into the main event scene on a couple of occasions, and those opportunities weren't acted on by management. This isn't me grinding an axe, it's just me saying that I don't think the things I didn't achieve were necessarily solely down to me. So, I don't really have regrets. I look at my career and I think wow, I did some really cool stuff.

Once I cooled down and left for a little while, I realized, wow, that was actually a really good career. Statistically, when you look at some of the things I achieved, and the main event in Summer Slam, and the main event in Survivor Series, winning championships and being a focal point of TV on numerous occasions, I can look back pretty proudly on it. Like I said, there's always those little pieces that I wish I'd done, but regret isn't the right word. I'm actually quite grateful and thankful for the experiences that I've had in this industry and the experiences I continue to get now working as a commentator.

The other thing I compare it to is when I was in Ohio Valley Wrestling and Florida Championship Wrestling, which were the WWE developmental territories of the day when I was coming through, I worked with a ton of guys in those systems who were really talented and some of them never got the opportunity that I got. They never made it to Raw and SmackDown. I often wonder, well, why didn't that guy get his chance? What was wrong with him? He was actually really talented. He may have been better than me at that point in time. So, when I look back and think of all the things that I got in my career compared to some of those guys who got really nothing, I can definitely feel very lucky and grateful that I have had an impact and left a legacy in the world of wrestling.

John Cena and a few others have campaigned for WrestleMania to go overseas. As someone from England, what makes the UK the perfect host for WrestleMania?

Well, I would say WrestleMania in the UK would be the ultimate dream for all of us Brits who are associated with this industry. We clearly have the infrastructure. There are a lot of countries out there that we love going to, but you turn up and maybe the facilities aren't top level. Maybe the roads, the hotels, maybe the building itself isn't capable of hosting a top-level event like a WWE WrestleMania. In the UK, we already have that. We have everything in place that you can just sign the contract and get it done.

But I think more than anything else, I think we have this vocal fan base. And I would say it extends outside of the UK too. Even the French, as we saw in Leon at Backlash a few months ago, were absolutely wild. I think the Germans are going to be crazy. We do Berlin at some point in September, I think. So, I think the whole European or Western Europe fan base would descend upon somewhere like Wembley Stadium or Spurs Stadium or the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Principality as it's called now and I think it would be huge. Just the noise, the sound, and the passion that the fan base will have would make it a very special occasion. So, I hope it happens at some point. I've no doubt we're going to get huge, huge premium live events over there. Whether it's going to be at WrestleMania, I don't know, but the way things are going at the moment. I think it's increasingly likely that we could end up over there.

For WrestleMania in the UK, would Wembley be your chosen place to host it?

Well, Wembley would be fantastic. I would say we're kind of hampered in some ways in the UK because of our weather. We always have to take into account the roof situation. So, we just had a clash at the castle in Glasgow, which is a fantastic arena. We went to the OVO Hydro up there, about 12 or 13,000 capacity. In truth, we could have sold a lot more tickets and one of the journalists that was up there asked the question, how about next time you come to a bigger stadium like Murrayfield or an Ibrox? All great in theory until you realize that we spent three days in Glasgow in summer and it rained non-stop every single day. And the problem with Murrayfield and Ibrox and places like that is they just don't have roofs. I feel like wherever we go probably needs a roof. I know it rains a little less in London, that might be the one sticking point with Wembley but obviously, the Spurs stadium and even the stadium in Cardiff may be better options, we'll see. But there's a historic pool in Wembley that I would like to go to, but there's no doubt about it. If it rained for an entire show and we've got fans sitting there for four hours in the downpour, which is always potentially going to happen, even in the middle of summer, they will kind of put a dampener on things, so who knows?

What was the initial reaction when you were told about the Nexus angle and how you were going to debut it on Raw?

So, I'd won NXT season one the week prior and as part of winning NXT season one, I knew I was golden. I knew I had a raw contract; I was going to be on TV. They're going to have to do something with me. I had no idea it was going to be as big as it was though. When we turned up that day, it was in Miami, at some point I think it was June 2010, they brought us all in, even the guys who hadn't won NXT season one and told us all, hey, here's what we're doing today. It's going to be massive; you're attacking John Cena; you're going to trash the place. So, us guys were all at that point in time paid a very small wage to train essentially. And personally, I was living in an apartment that had cockroaches in there. I had a tiny little car in Tampa, Florida that had no air conditioning, quite simply because that's all I could afford. To live with cockroaches and have this boiling hot car in the burning heat of Tampa, Florida. So, the opportunity to actually become stars, become players on the biggest wrestling show on the planet and actually earn some good money finally in our career after several years of really struggling financially, it was a big relief to a lot of us to suddenly know that this is going to be huge. We are going to be established WWE stars after we do this and to have that play out the way it did and solidify a lot of us as pretty big-time players in WWE was huge for all of us.

Name the most underrated wrestler from Nexus.

I am still friends with literally everybody from the first incarnation of Nexus anyway. They're all really good guys. Guys I've been through the FCW developmental system with and I traveled the roads around Florida competing in fairs and in armories and community centers and things like that. So, I knew these guys really well. And I'd say probably the one guy out of that original Nexus who didn't get anywhere near what he was due would have been Michael Tarver. A lot of people might not even be familiar with the name Michael Tarver, which is a real shame because he's a guy who was in the developmental system at the time, he was somebody who we all knew was perhaps the best promo. He was the best on the mic out of anybody in the entire developmental system. He had a great look. I don't think he necessarily got his in-ring to where he wanted to get it to but he was well on the path to doing that.

And he's probably the one guy from Nexus who really got very little out of it. Pretty much everyone else who was in Nexus had a run of some sort to various degrees, winning championships or at least being a player on the show. And Tarvers is probably the one guy who didn't get that. He absolutely did deserve it. He was a great guy. We all loved him. We loved being around him. He's a guy that I bump into occasionally to this day and I always have a big hope for him. It's always great seeing him. He's doing really well but he's a guy who to me deserved a lot more than he got. I still can't give you an answer as to why within six months of Nexus, I think he was gone from the company and nobody else picked him up. And I never really understood that. So, he's a guy that to me deserved a heck of a lot more than he got after Nexus.

What is the best memory that you have from your time as part of Nexus?

I'd say the best memory with Nexus would probably be when we did a show in the O2 Arena, it may have been Manchester, but around November 2010. So, I've been running with Nexus for a little while and I ended up having a match with Randy Orton in the UK on one of our tours, it was on Raw. Just being out there in front of that UK audience after achieving what I had just achieved with Nexus and being this focal point of the show. I remember going out there and beating Randy Orton in front of a UK crowd. It was a bit of cheating admittedly, but that was always the case when I won. But I remember at the end of that show, the Nexus guys all lifted me on their shoulders and the crowd went crazy. And it felt like, wow, I've actually made it. I can now, after all I've done in this game, after all the struggles and low payoffs and injuries and bad times, pressure and stress, all that stuff, I actually was being hoisted on people's shoulders in front of this UK crowd and having this UK crowd go crazy after beating one of the top names in the history of the industry, that was definitely up there with my happiest moments.

How lucky is Rooney that you didn't retaliate after the match?

Wayne Rooney is lucky that he can afford better lawyers than I can. That's what I'll say. I think we're a physical mismatch. I'm twice the size of Wayne Rooney. I think if I had responded in that moment, there would have been plenty of lawsuits coming my way. He was still an active player for England. He was still an active player for Manchester United and I'm sure whoever the managers were at that point in time would not have been very happy with Wade Barrett placing his hands on the English golden boy Wayne Rooney. A number of factors played in my head very quickly when I decided to not retaliate, but the financial aspect was probably the biggest one.

Would you make a special exception for him to make you return to the ring and take him on if he was interested?

I have told Wayne numerous times he has an open invite to come back to WWE. We are both way past our peak. We are both way past our sell-by date. But absolutely Wayne Rooney has an open invite anytime he likes. I know his kids are big fans, I know he was at a UK live event not so long ago, coming to watch the guys. So, he's still a fan, he's still around it. I'm full of clarity here. I'm a huge fan of Wayne Rooney. I was the biggest supporter of him as a player right up there with Paul Gascoigne in terms of my all-time favourite England players. Brilliant player. No one could ever forget how amazing he was in 2004 in the Euros when he was ripping teams apart as this young 18-year-old prodigy. So, I'm a big fan of the guy and I don't want this to be turned into some immense hatred I have for him. But in terms of stepping into our world, no pal, I'm throwing you back out. So, if he did ever want to lock horns as two old washed-up men in the WWE ring, bring it on, Wayne.

So how do you think he'd fare in a boxing ring since he's teased about entering the sport? Do you think he'd do all right?

I think he'd have been really good when he was younger. I don't know if I've ever seen an 18-year-old professional footballer be as confident, and aggressive as Wayne Rooney was when he burst onto the scene. Even younger, when he was 16, he was ready to fight anyone. He was ready to fight grown men when he was still a boy. I think the age thing is the problem now for Wayne, he's not the athlete he was when he was 17, or 18 years old. That happens to all of us. It's a natural part of the ageing process. I think had he chosen to go into boxing as a young, scouse teenager, as opposed to going into football, I'm sure he would have done really well. If he's going to get involved now, I hope it's more in the training or management capacity. I don't necessarily like seeing these ex-athletes getting into these boxing matches and celebrity boxing and stuff. I'm not personally a huge fan of that. But it's his life, he gets to live it however he wants.

Obviously, you're a big football fan. What do you make of England's chances at the Euros now that we're through?

I'd say I'm really concerned.The first two games for us have been hopeless. In the Serbia game, we should have got one point. In the Denmark game, we should have lost. So, we're through on four points, but we do not deserve to be in this position. And the results have flattered England, which is insane when you look at our personnel.

And the thing that really worries me is that the game leading into this, we also lost to Iceland in our final friendly. All I can think is back to 2016 with Roy Hodgson in that European championship. I remember specifically the friendly games leading up to the tournament, we were horrible in every game. And then the tournament happened and we continued being horrible. The problems that we were having in the team not clicking and not connecting were exactly the same in 2016 as they are today. And these things don't miraculously change overnight.

Okay, I'm not going to write everything off yet, but the way they're playing gives me absolutely zero faith that this will be fixed. And I think there needs to be a significant change either in personnel or tactically and I just don't know if Gareth Southgate is capable of doing that. Similar to how Roy Hodgson was not capable in 2016, he didn't know how to fix the problems, I have the same fear with Gareth Southgate. I'm still supporting the team. I hope they do well, but I am very nervous about England. I personally at this point cannot see us winning it unless something major changes and fingers crossed it does.

Preston and the Premier League, could it ever happen?

Preston in the Premier League, look, Preston are not the most wealthy team. In terms of the amount of money they have in the championship, they are one of the, I'd say bottom three teams in terms of finances. And that's part of the cruelty of the parachute payments of teams that have come down from the Premier League. And we really struggle with that. And there's not a lot you can do. Is it possible? Hell yeah, it's possible. Look at Ipswich, they just did it. Look at Luton a couple of years ago.

They can do it, but you just need everything to go right at the right time. One of Preston's issues is the first 11 we have been generally really good and really competitive. We just don't have the kind of depth of squad that a lot of the other more wealthy teams like Leeds, Sheffield United, some of these richer clubs, they have two players for every position. Preston doesn't have that. We maybe have a really good first 14 or 15 players and after that, the drop off is quite significant. So, we need a bit of luck with injuries and suspensions and things like that. It's possible, I believe every season, usually until we start going on a losing run. And last season we were top of the league after about 10 games and looked fantastic. But then things went off the rails a bit. But Preston, I still believe every season, we'll see if it happens. Fingers crossed.