Ask any wrestling fan about Stu Bennett's WWE run as Wade Barrett, and they'll agree that the company dropped the ball again and again. Whether it was his time as the leader of Nexus, his red-hot run as Bad News Barrett, or even his King Barrett persona, he never received the push he deserved (even when fans were behind him 110%).
These days, Bennett is an action movie star, and when we caught up with him to discuss I Am Vengeance: Retaliation, we asked if a return to WWE is completely off the table after some of his negative experiences there.
"When I left there, I was of the opinion that I was done with working there," he revealed. "I was pretty angry with a couple of people from when I was working there and when I left, a couple of people in management. I think time is a great healer, shall we say, and I certainly don't have much anger left in me in regards to that now. Similarly, I don't feel like I have an automatic affiliation with the company itself or the people who work there."
"It's not like I have any ingrained loyalty where I have to jump the second they call me, for example," Bennett continued. "If there were to be an offer, I would approach it as a normal business decision if it was an offer from AEW or Ring or Honor or New Japan, or anything like that. It's simply a business decision: is it worth it, do I like the offer, do I like the pitch, do I believe what I'm being pitched is actually going to happen? That's another big one. I would approach anything that came my way, the same I would from any other company to be honest with you."
Recently, it was reported that WWE asked Bennett to make some sort of return earlier this year to reunite the Nexus for a one-off appearance, but it sounded pretty lame, and he and other members said no (it was presumably something to do with the Firefly Funhouse match at WrestleMania).
Still, a WWE return clearly isn't completely ruled out, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens...