Wade Barrett Says Arianne Grace Improved His Finishing Move

Former WWE Intercontinental Champion and current SmackDown commentator Wade Barrett recently praised NXT star Arianna Grace. The second-generation star is currently out of action due to injury and would take months of rehab before she is ready to step back inside the squared circle.

The daughter of WWE legend Santino Marella, Grace signed with the WWE in February 2022 and made her debut at NXT: Level Up taping back in April while also taking part in the Women’s Breakout tournament.

Arianna had begun to use an updated version of the Wasteland before she getting injured. Wade Barrett last wrestled for the WWE back in 2016 and this finisher became synonymous with the former bearer of Bad News. Wade went on to praise the second generation star for using his finisher in her own way. Barrett spoke about it with Ryan Satin on the ‘Out of Character’ podcast.

“Arianna Grace, who is in NXT, she’s unfortunately just gone in for surgery and has picked up an injury, hopefully, she’ll be back soon. She started doing her version of the Wasteland and, first of all, she came to me and said, ‘Would you mind if I use this move? I like the way you do it.’ I said, ‘Of course.’ How cool is that, that she came up to me and asked me?

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“Here’s what I don’t like, she actually does it better than I did. She figured out a way of doing it where she goes down with it, it looks even better than how I did it.

“So, maybe if I could go back in time, I’d try to do Arianna Grace’s version rather than my own version. As much as I hate to admit it, the youngster has improved on my way of doing it.” 

Arianna has not revealed the nature of her injury, but has updating the fans about her road to recovery through social media. Grace’s last televised appearance was in a match teaming up with Kiana James and were defeated by Nikkita Lyons & Zoey Stark.

Do you want to see Arianna Grace use the Wasteland finisher in the future? Sound off in the comments!