Word came out recently that Wade Barrett is on his way out of the WWE. He seemed to bolster the rumors with a fairly cryptic Tweet, but perhaps that isn’t the case at all. Perhaps he was actually just leading people in that direction.

This week on Smackdown, taped just two nights after the Fastlane event, Barrett partook in an eight-man tag team match. He actually started in the ring and spent a good time wrestling. That is a stark contrast to the number of other times he “participated” in multi-man tag matches that saw him never get tagged in.

With the King of Bad News apparently cleared to wrestle and none of the usual news sources picking up on it, I wonder if there was ever any intention in the Barrett camp to leave in the first place. Based on where the WWE appeared to be headed with him before his injury, maybe he and Sheamus will be the tag team that the League of Nations chooses to go after The New Day and their WWE Tag Team Championship.

If Barrett was in fact considering leaving, it is possible that the WWE wants him to stay enough that they are willing to give him a run at the tag titles in order to make him feel important. If there’s one guy (and there are far more than one) who can complain about being given stop-and-go pushes, it’s this guy. Barrett was headlining against John Cena, then got bumped down a notch for a long-term feud with Randy Orton, then went down even further to the Intercontinental Championship.

One would think that a championship reign would be a step in the right direction, but he was a champion that lost pretty much all of his non-title matches and only barely held onto the belt when it was on the line. He was one of the least protected champions in history.

The WWE hasn’t had much of a clue about what to do with Barrett for quite a long time. If he is considering leaving, whether to wrestle elsewhere or to pursue other opportunities, you can’t blame the guy. If he isn’t going anywhere, hopefully the WWE will start giving him the chance that he deserves now that he is healed up.