As a Brit myself, you could say I was biased, and truth be told you could be right in saying that, however there is no denying the stature and physique of the former bare knuckle fighter suits him for him being the current Intercontinental Champion. Can he be a WWE World Heavyweight Champion this year? Possibly, of course it’s doubtful, it’s something that many, Brits mainly believe should actually happen.
The character itself has been given positive and good crowd responses, and his push given with the Intercontinental Champion being placed back on him, albeit through the dethroning of crowd favorite Dolph Ziggler, it’s evident that the writers want to keep the Englishman relevant, possibly for WrestleMania, or even further than that. I’d personally like to see Bad News Barrett be given an equivalent of a Rusev-like role, it would be something different for the WWE if they actually made the Intercontinental Championship a platform for winning the World title, instead of used as a ‘filler’. A good example of this would be The Miz’s irrelevant reign last year in the summer.
How could he accomplish this?
If Bad News Barrett would come into the world title scene, it would have to be on the back of an Intercontinental title defeat, he couldn’t hold both championships at all; there already is arguably a lack of title belts in the WWE. Arguably the WWE maybe shouldn’t have merged the belts; that along with my opinion on the brand split are for another day however! The reigning Intercontinental champion will have to use his character in such a way as maybe Dolph Ziggler has done, and has really tried to connect and make an interactive relationship with his audience.
It’s early days for Bad News, just coming back from a separated shoulder is always a hard one, and the fact that he’s come back and already has had the IC title put on him already shows he’s already on a path of being able to cause more shockwaves in the WWE. The writers have got to be on his side (of course) and someone like Barrett whom with the Nexus entered himself in the main event limelight, won’t be shy of stepping up to that sort of platform again, if anything he’ll thrive on it.
Bad News had claimed to Sam Roberts in a ‘shoot interview’, of his displeasure of being a jobber and participating week in and week out in squash matches, he believed that he was overused and had too much exposure put on him. This is something the WWE have to be wary of, for example, do we need to see J&J security that many times on Raw, or do we need to see John Cena in the opening segment of Raw every single week? Arguably not, Barrett will have to be injected, so to speak, in the right spots, possibly using him on Smack Down which has now moved to Thursdays, ‘exclusively on the WWE network for $9.99’ (Sorry for the plug) it could be a great platform for the Englishman to build a run for the Road to WrestleMania.
It’s unlikely he’ll become champion in early 2015, with Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns returning, and Seth Rollins and John Cena in the title picture, it would be unfair to them if Barrett would overtake them in such a manner.
Memory Lane!
So, can Barrett win the WWE World Heavyweight title this year? Maybe not in 2015, but it could be inevitable that he could be the first ever Brit to lift that title, unless of course someone like Adrian Neville slips into the limelight ahead of him.
WWE: ECW Unreleased Volume Three
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