WWE has long teased British wrestling fans with the possibility of bringing WrestleMania to the UK. For a long time, it felt like a pipe dream, though it finally feels like the door is open to the Show of Shows hopping across the pond in the not-too-distant future.
For starters, since being acquired by Endeavor, WWE has increased the number of international PLEs it holds and recent years have seen the UK get Clash at the Castle twice (in 2022 and last month) and Money in the Bank in 2023.
We were recently fortunate enough to submit some questions for SmackDown commentator and former pro wrestler Wade Barrett as part of an interview conducted by AceOdds.
Needless to say, we wanted to get his thoughts on WWE's increased focus on the UK, where he'd like to see WrestleMania take place, and how he feels the Scotland-born Drew McIntyre has represented his country since becoming WWE Champion for the first time in 2020.
You can read Barrett's full comments below.
Cardiff, London, and now Glasgow; the past few years have been great for UK PLEs. What has that meant to you and where would be your dream WrestleMania location if the UK ever gets the Show of Shows?
WrestleMania in the UK would be the ultimate dream for all of us Brits who are associated with this industry. We clearly have the infrastructure. There are a lot of countries out there that we love going to, but you turn up and maybe the facilities aren't top level. Maybe the roads, the hotels, maybe the building itself isn't capable of hosting a top-level event like a WWE WrestleMania. In the UK, we already have that. We have everything in place that you can just sign the contract and get it done.
But I think more than anything else, I think we have this vocal fan base. And I would say it extends outside of the UK too. Even the French, as we saw in Leon at Backlash a few months ago, were absolutely wild. I think the Germans are going to be crazy. We do Berlin at some point in September, I think. So, I think the whole European or Western Europe fan base would descend upon somewhere like Wembley Stadium or Spurs Stadium or the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Principality as it's called now and I think it would be huge. Just the noise, the sound, and the passion that the fan base will have would make it a very special occasion. So, I hope it happens at some point. I've no doubt we're going to get huge, huge premium live events over there. Whether it's going to be at WrestleMania, I don't know, but the way things are going at the moment. I think it's increasingly likely that we could end up over there.
Wembley would be fantastic. I would say we're kind of hampered in some ways in the UK because of our weather. We always have to take into account the roof situation. So, we just had a clash at the castle in Glasgow, which is a fantastic arena. We went to the OVO Hydro up there, about 12 or 13,000 capacity. In truth, we could have sold a lot more tickets and one of the journalists that was up there asked the question, how about next time you come to a bigger stadium like Murrayfield or an Ibrox? All great in theory until you realize that we spent three days in Glasgow in summer and it rained non-stop every single day. And the problem with Murrayfield and Ibrox and places like that is they just don't have roofs.
I feel like wherever we go probably needs a roof. I know it rains a little less in London, that might be the one sticking point with Wembley but obviously, the Spurs stadium and even the stadium in Cardiff may be better options, we'll see. But there's a historic pool in Wembley that I would like to go to, but there's no doubt about it. If it rained for an entire show and we've got fans sitting there for four hours in the downpour, which is always potentially going to happen, even in the middle of summer, they will kind of put a dampener on things, so who knows?
Drew McIntyre became WWE's first British world champion a few years back and is now gunning for that title again. What are your thoughts on his run and how he's represented the UK?
I think Drew has been fantastic. I think he's one of those guys who can do it all. He can be the big hero as we saw in Glasgow and the whole city or whole country is going nuts for him. He can be the most vile human being imaginable, which is what we saw a few days later in Chicago at CM Punk's home. And he really is fantastic in the ring. He looks great. He's a complete pro when it comes to representing WWE in the media and then on the mic, I think in the last 12 months, Drew has hit a whole new level on the mic where he's potentially the number one guy in the entire industry when it comes to talking.
I would say historically that was Drew's biggest weak point, especially when we first moved over to the U.S. He wasn't confident on the mic. He had a lot of difficulties with his accent. People couldn't understand him. I was having to translate for Drew when we'd be going into restaurants and things like that but his growth in all areas has been massive. And I think he's the perfect guy to have become the first-ever British WWE World Champion. I think they knocked it out of the park with that guy and he's going to keep on getting better and delivering over the next few years.