WWE
Wade Barrett has issued a statement on his WWE status after missing this week’s episode of SmackDown.
On the September 5 episode of SmackDown, Michael Cole announced that he and WWE Raw partner Corey Graves would be performing commentary on SmackDown for the next couple on months.
With Joe Tessitore seemingly taken off of SmackDown due to his obligations for ESPN’s college football coverage, it was reported by PWInsider Elite that Wade Barrett will be “off the road going forward for a bit” and won’t be calling Raw, with Cole and Graves continuing to provide commentary for Raw as well as SmackDown.
In response to an aggregation of PWInsider’s report on Twitter that has since been deleted, Barrett clarified the reason for his absence, revealing that he has been granted personal time off from WWE that he requested nine months ago and will be “back to business as usual” after a couple of weeks.
Barrett wrote:
I usually ignore BS reports like this, but it’s causing needless hate to be spewed towards people I work with.
WWE have kindly given me a couple of weeks off for personal time (booked nine months ago), and then I’m back to business as usual.
A complete non-story. The end.
Prior to SmackDown Barrett revealed that he and Nikki Bella has “smoothed things over” following comments he made regarding the Hall of Famer during WWE Clash in Paris.
We will provide updates on Barrett’s status and return to WWE television as more news becomes available.
I usually ignore BS reports like this, but it’s causing needless hate to be spewed towards people I work with.
WWE have kindly given me a couple of weeks off for personal time (booked nine months ago), and then I’m back to business as usual. A complete non-story. The end. https://t.co/ZPcBQatnCK
— Stu Bennett 🏴🇺🇸 (@StuBennett) September 6, 2025
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13 hours ago by Jamie Toolan