Stu Bennett Talks About His Miserable Last WWE Days

"I f**king hate it here".

by Andrew Pollard
Wade Barrett
WWE.com

To many, one of the biggest WWE ball-drops of recent years was how the company fumbled the Bad News Barrett character. And now, Stu Bennett has talked about his frustrations during his final years in Vince McMahon's company.

Speaking on Colt Cabana’s Art of Wrestling podcast, Bennett explained how he turned down offers to stay with WWE due to hating his time there.

“They made me a couple of offers,” Bennett said, “’Doesn’t matter what you offer me, I need to leave, I f**king hate it here.’ I needed that change.”

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The former Intercontinental Champion eluded, “I was sliding down the card and getting opportunities that I thought were kind of wasted. Like, I became King of the Ring, which sounds like it should be impressive, but what was it followed up with? Zero writing. You know, 30 seconds of writing – ‘just have them wrestle for three minutes’ and ‘have this guy go over Stu’. Yeah, there was that level of writing, week after week.”

Bennett departed WWE in May 2016 following a stint in the League of Nations stable. His return to the wrestling world would follow in April 2017 as he took on commentary duties at our very own What Culture Pro Wrestling: No Regrets show.

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More recently, Stu Bennett has been working at the commentary desk for the NWA.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.