Barrett will sit alongside veteran Michael Cole doing colour commentary for the foreseeable future.
He tweeted: “BOOM! Excited to bleed blue on #SmackDown alongside the GOAT Michael Cole for a little while! What a crazy opportunity..Wade Barrett will now appear on WWE's Smackdown show The 42-year-old announced back in August that he’d signed a new two-year deal with WWE and has clearly impressed higher-ups with his work out-of-the-ring.
How long he will be on Smackdown remains to be seen with popular announcer-turned-wrestler Pat McAfee taking some time away from the company to cover American football having previously been sat alongside mainstay Cole since April 2021. Barrett hasn’t competed in the ring since initially leaving WWE in 2016 but returned to the company in August 2020, joining NXT.He has also dabbled in acting and was a prominent figure in ITV’s short-lived reboot of World of Sport Wrestling.It is for his in-ring work that he is best known though. monikers including ‘Bad News’ Barrett and ‘King’ Barrett seeing him win the prestigious Intercontinental Championship five times.