10 Wrestlers Who Were Punished For Obeying Orders
7. Wade Barrett - Bad News Leads To More Bad News
The long-running narrative when it comes to stars attempting to make a name for themselves on WWE programming is that when given an opportunity to generate some buzz, you should take it with both hands and run with it.
In the wake of the Nexus faction fizzling out and subsequently getting lost in the shuffle around 2013, Wade Barrett was left needing something of a career rejuvenator. As it happens, he found just that after his new "Bad News Barrett" shtick on WWE's The JBL and Cole YouTube show quickly began to generate a bit of buzz online and backstage.
Keen to capitalise on a popular enough concept, "Bad News Barrett" was soon nudged onto WWE TV, ready to dish out the bad news to the sound of widespread approval. The only problem was that Vince McMahon hadn't actually watched any of Barrett's YouTube work and had not planned on this new act getting over to the degree it did.
So, instead of leaning into its sizeable popularity, WWE told the Brit to pull back on the bad news, quickly killing off the most over run of his career with the company.