Intervista rioguardo al match contro Orton alle Survivor Series.
Wade Barrett is just your typical marine biologist turned bare-knuckle brawler turned WWE heel?
"I've had a really strange path to WWE, that's for sure" Barrett says with a laugh.
That's right, before Barrett was turning heads as wrestling's breakout star of 2010, he was the largest lab tech in England.
And like his road to success, Barrett's rise through the ranks of the WWE elite has been anything but typical.
In a matter of months, Barrett and his Nexus crew rose from rookies just trying to earn a shot on WWE's main roster to the talk of the entire wrestling world.
And this Sunday, Barrett gets his shot at the biggest prize of them all, the WWE Championship, as he takes on Randy Orton at Survivor Series.
While prepping for the main event, Barrett took time out to talk to ESPN about everything from his days working in the lab to what he learned from the veterans during Old School Raw to his downloadable character in "WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011." Here's what the baddest man in the business had to say.
Jon Robinson: How does someone go from a degree in marine biology to fighting in bare knuckles tournaments to the WWE?
Wade Barrett: I was always a WWE fan as a child and I fantasized about being a wrestler. But as I got a little older, I thought it was just a pipe dream, so I went out to get a degree and a normal job. So I started my degree at the University of Liverpool, got my degree and started working in a science laboratory. While I was doing that, I started bare-knuckles fighting as well in order to earn some decent money on the side. By then, I got a little older, and I felt with my size and my confidence and my fighting ability, it was something I could do if I worked hard enough. So I started wrestling independently in the U.K. and one thing led to another and I was offered a contract with WWE.
Jon Robinson: You must've been the most intimidating lab worker anyone had ever seen.
Wade Barrett: It's funny because when I turned up at the lab, they had to have a lab coat specially made for me. I was the biggest guy by far that they had ever seen. They had to get a coat with extended arms and widened in the back. It took them about four weeks to finally get me a lab coat.