WWE: Is Wade Barrett More Ready to Main Event Now Than He Was Last Year?

Wade Barrett has never won a World Championship, but let’s put things into perspective: He really hasn’t been around very long. 

The bareknuckle brawler from England only made his debut in February 2010 on the inaugural season of NXT, and he didn’t become an official member of the WWE’s main roster until he and the Nexus invaded Raw in June of that year and were later awarded “contracts” to be on the show. 

Once officially a member of Raw, Barrett went from NXT Season 1 winner to main-eventer almost quicker than it took me to type that sentence. 

Before we knew it, Barrett’s Nexus faction began to dominate WWE TV, and Barrett himself was thrust into main event angles with the company’s top two stars, John Cena and Randy Orton. Barrett’s Nexus faced Team WWE in the main event of SummerSlam that year, and Barrett went on to challenge for the WWE Championship on four separate occasions before facing Cena in a match at WWE TLC at the end of the year. 

Although Barrett was never successful in winning the WWE title, and he lost to Cena at TLC, it was pretty clear that Barrett had a bright future in the WWE. He was a main event-level mic worker, he had a ton of charisma and though he wasn’t great in the ring, he was better than most big men, especially those who haven’t been around for a while. 

The one thing that Barrett lacked in 2010, however, was experience. 

He skyrocketed up the WWE ladder about as quickly as anyone not named Sheamus or Alberto Del Rio, going from NXT rookie to main-eventing SummerSlam and Survivor Series in a 10-month span. 

Barrett held his own during those main event storylines with both Orton and Cena, but the lack of experience showed. Barrett was going to be a star at some point, but the early success of Nexus made WWE officials realize that they had a good thing going, and as a result, they probably pushed him to the top too soon. 

He wasn’t ready then, and that’s precisely why he’s ready now. 

After working in the main event for much of his first year in the company, Barrett knows what it’s like to work at the top of the card, he knows what it’s like to work with the two biggest stars in the industry and he knows what it’s like to fail in his attempts to win a World Championship. 

He didn’t know what that was like in 2010, but thanks to everything he did that year, he now has more experience working as a top star than 90 percent of the WWE roster. 

Barrett’s current feud with Randy Orton has shown how his whirlwind WWE career has gotten him ready for the big-time. 

After being moved to Smackdown early in 2011 and being forced to eat some humble pie, Barrett didn’t whine or complain and get himself some backstage heat. Instead, he worked with the storylines he was given and progressed his way up the WWE ladder to the spot he’s in now. 

Just like he showed upon his WWE debut, Barrett has still been killing it on the microphone in his feud with Orton. But he’s now much better in one key area than he was in 2010: in the ring. 

Barrett’s last main event run came in December 2010, which means he’s had roughly a year to work with different wrestlers, improve his skills and make himself a more well-rounded professional wrestler. 

And that’s exactly what he’s done. 

Barrett has worked his tail off to step his game up as a wrestler, and given that he already excels as a mic worker, he now has all the tools in the world to become a full-time main-eventer and an eventual world champion in 2012. 

He can thank WWE officials for moving him to Smackdown and giving him a taste of that humble pie because—although those decisions may have disappointed him at first—they combined to give Barrett the experience he needed to make sure his next main event run wouldn’t fail. 

Judging by what he’s done in his feud with Orton so far, the WWE’s plan worked.