Wade Barrett Reveals Why He Left WWE

Despite having relative youth and a solid body of work, Wade Barrett kissed Vince McMahon and WWE goodbye in 2016. Now that he's out of the circus, Barrett is ready to explain why he left a promising career behind.

During an appearance on Sam Robert's podcast Barrett was an open book about his departure from WWE.

"I was miserable for a long time for the last few years I was in WWE," Barrett said. "I have no beef or hate for them, but it was just how I was feeling at the time. Once upon a time if you go back to the early 2000s all the way to 2014 all I cared about in life was being a wrestler, going on the road, performing in front of crowds, getting big, climbing the ladder. But then at some point around 2015 it took a giant U-turn and thought to myself, 'wait a minute? What am I doing here? This isn't the direction that I want.'"

By then, Barrett's character had become aimless. Even though he had five Intercontinental Championships to his name, it appeared WWE didn't have much in store for Bad News Barrett. However, anyone who's been in WWE for an extended period would identify with similar lulls. But Barret didn't want to wait around, instead, he wanted to pursue a career in acting.

"While I was working for the WWE in 2013 and 2014, TV deals had come to me, movie deals had come to me, sponsorship deals had come to me and they were all turned down by WWE because they would involve me being taken away from their shows," Barrett said. "Their steam train is running all over the world and I would have to step out of that steam train and go film for four weeks, or go shoot a film for two weeks or even two days to go film a series of commercials or something like that. But they couldn't afford to take me away from that time so I knew that if I wanted to go and do something else, the only way for me to do that is to first step away from WWE and figure out how I make contacts and how do I start speaking to people in the film world and finding agents and that sort of thing. So one had to come first, and that was to come first to get the curtain off of WWE," he said.

Barrett revealed that WWE offered him a three-year contract before he left, but it wasn't enough to entice him. Not only was Barrett set on acting, but the lifestyle of a professional wrestler was one he was ready to be done with.

"It is a grind," Said Barrett. "It is a grind lifestyle and it never ends until you get hurt and then you sit home rehabbing for three months or whatever it is until you get back straight on that train grinding again, which is how you make your money in the pro wrestling world.

[H/T Wrestling Inc.]