Carlito has weighed in on the modern WWE celebrity wrestler pipeline, telling Insight with Chris Van Vliet listeners that Bad Bunny loses substantial money every time he wrestles, but that Carlito still expects to see the Puerto Rican music star return to the ring at some point.
The conversation came up as part of the broader discussion of celebrity wrestlers, with Carlito framing the lineage that produced the modern attention-from-mainstream-stars approach to WWE booking.
“Bad Bunny loses a lot of money wrestling, so yeah, you really have to love it for that.”
The framing puts the Bad Bunny WWE relationship as a pure love-of-wrestling decision rather than a financial one. Bad Bunny has been one of the most-financially-successful Latin music artists of recent years, with his concert tours, streaming numbers, and brand partnerships generating substantially more revenue than any WWE wrestling appearance could produce. The framing puts the appearances as a deliberate personal-interest investment rather than a business decision.
Asked whether he expects Bad Bunny back in WWE at some point, Carlito was straight forward. “At some point. I definitely see.”
Bad Bunny last had a featured WWE TV appearance during his WrestleMania 39 weekend booking, where he wrestled a singles match against Damian Priest at Backlash 2023 in Puerto Rico. The match was widely regarded as one of the best celebrity-wrestler matches in modern WWE history.
“Every celebrity that’s as comfortable has stepped up their game and taking it serious. Stephen Amell, yeah, yeah. He took it serious too, because he had that match with Stardust, and then like, had a great match at All In before it became AEW.”
Carlito also named the WWE main event wrestlers he did not get to share the ring with on his recent run that he would have wanted to wrestle.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Whoever pays the most, that’s why I want to wrestle, you know.”
Asked specifically whether John Cena would be the answer, Carlito confirmed it.
“Yeah, John, or Roman Reigns. I never worked with Roman, so that would have been the paycheck, would have been nice.”
If you use quotes from this article, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
