Former WWE Star Reveals Origins Of Odd Faction Name

WWE

In 2011, Wade Barrett was ejected from The Nexus, forming his own faction with an odd spelling, with the reasoning behind it now revealed.

The faction would see Barrett joined by Justin Gabriel, Ezekiel Jackson and Heath Slater, being known as The Corre.

Formed after Barrett was kicked out of The Nexus by its new leader CM Punk, The Corre would last only six months before disbanding.

In a recent interview with Inside the Ropes, the former WWE star was asked to talk about The Corre, saying:

“Pass (laughs). Should have never happened and Nexus should have rode right through that s**t.”

The Corre was born of the second iteration of The Nexus, led by CM Punk and introduced in January 2011.

As for the name of the faction, Slater would reveal the original plans for The Corre and how The Nexus impacted things, stating:

“Here’s the story about that, and this is the truth. The Corre was supposed to be me, Gabriel, Wade and Ryback. Ryback got hurt. He was out. Next thing, the Nexus is falling apart and CM Punk’s coming in, they’re breaking Nexus up, that type of thing.

“I thought it would be like NWO white and red and we’d have Nexus yellow and white or whatever. But no, we’re changing the whole name, and y’all gonna be the core of Nexus.”

The former WWE star would then reveal how The Corre ended up with its unusual spelling thanks to Vince McMahon, explaining:

“Then we were in a meeting and Vince said, “They gotta have a shirt”, this and that.

“And they’re like, what about this? What about that? So I guess Kore was copyrighted and Core was copyrighted.

“Vince took out a napkin that his coffee was on, drew a t-shirt and wrote C, O, R, R, E, down sideways with this little Iron Man heart in the O, gave it to them and said, print it out. That’s how we got our Corre shirt.”

Slater would then also tackle the rumor (started by Wade Barrett) that he was the one who had come up with the bad spelling, revealing:

“I said, “What the hell? Why are there 2 Rs?” Then Wade, the b**tard, tries to tell the whole damn world that I can’t spell.

“That’s the truth, but I did not misspell Corre. When I first looked at it, I thought it was like Corré, like French or something. I didn’t know.

“When I first saw it I was like, God, that’s an ugly shirt. Why is it spelled that way?

“And then of course, Stu (Bennett (Barrett’s real name)) being Stu, he just wanted to let the world know I did it.”

In the interview, Slater also revealed that he was forced to change his look and character to avoid resembling Edge (now Cope in AEW).

The Corre would disband on June 10, 2011, after Barrett abandoned Slater and Gabriel in a six-man tag team match against Ezekiel Jackson & The Usos, leading to a confrontation between the former teammates on WWE SmackDown.

Transcript from Inside the Ropes.