WWE is a juggernaught in the wrestling business, everybody knows this. However as powerful of a force they are, they do make mistakes quite often. (QUITE often) Today we’re gonna look at possibly one of the biggest booking failures possibly in WWE history, The Nexus, and how I would book it differently because I’m egotistical and think that I know better.
As you know the Nexus was a faction in 2010 that reaked havoc around the WWE, attacking superstars, attacking legends, and basically just destroying the show in any way they could. They even attacked the likes of Bret Hart and Vince McMahon. The Nexus were white hot going into Summerslam and looked anything but unstoppable, until the rookies came up short against John Cena and his team of WWE renegades, which thoroughly derailed all the momentum that The Nexus had built up. In the following months The Nexus would die a slow and painful death as members left, got injured, CM Punk did some stuff somewhere in there, until it finally died off. So its safe to say that WWE creative admitedly dropped the ball on The Nexus. (Even John Cena himself admitted it was a huge screw up)
So now that we’ve established how bad the brutal murder of this angle was, let’s get down to the reason I’m writing this article: How would I have booked it differently?
First off, when The Nexus debuted, it was one of if not the most impactful debuts in the history of the WWE, so I wouldn’t have done that any differently. The Nexus would have caused all the havoc and brutality they wanted until John Cena and Team WWE would challenge The Nexus to a match at Summerslam and (this is a no brainer) I would have booked Team Nexus to win the match. Next month at Night of Champions have Wade Barrett challenge Randy Orton for the WWE title and thanks to the overpowering numbers game of The Nexus, have him ultimately beat Orton for the title. This shows that creative has a lot of faith in not only The Nexus but also in Barrett, and causes a bit of shock factor as Wade Barrett has won the title so soon after his debut. Earlier on the same night, have two members of the Nexus win the tag titles and defend them under the freebird rule. The next night on Raw, John Cena challenges Barrett to a match at Hell in a Cell with the stipulation that if Cena wins, he gets the WWE title, but if Barrett wins, Cena is gone from the WWE. Barrett wins and Cena actually leaves the company for the rest of the year. (A bit of a long shot but lets just roll with it) Barrett then goes on the rack up wins at Survivor Series and TLC against Randy Orton and his fromier NXT mentor Chris Jericho and he starts getting a bigger and bigger head with each win and starts to believe he is doing it all on his own without the Nexus.He even starts to make the Nexus recite a pledge, not to the Nexus, but to Wade Barrett himself, saying “I pledge my full allegiance to Wade Barrett etc.” At TLC, the two superstars defending the Tag titles, Daniel Bryan and Justin Gabriel, lose the championships so as punishment Barrett orders them caned the next night on Raw by the rest of the Nexus, so they grab kento sticks and whip both men on the back 3 times each and recite the pledge afterwards. Now it’s starting to take a turn from regular faction to more of a tyrannica dictator, maybe even culty kind of angle. So now the Royal Rumble is right around the corner, and Wade Barrett tells all the members of The Nexus to eliminate everyone in the Rumble and then eliminate themselves so that he doesn’t have to face anybody at Wrestlemania. Heath Slater gets eliminated halfway through the Rumble, and on his way up the ramp Barrett attacks him and destroys him with a steel chair, telling the rest of The Nexus that this is what will be awaiting them if they fail to follow his orders. Eventually another member of the Nexus gets eliminated and the same thing happens to him, with Barrett threatening the rest of the Nexus once again. Daniel Bryan and Justin Gabriel both look at each other and say “screw it” and eliminate themselves, leaving the match. Then as the clock is about to strike 0 on the number thirty entrant, John Cena comes out and eliminates the rest of The Nexus, winning the Royal Rumble. Now at this point The Nexus is pretty much imploding and falling apart so at Elimination Chamber, we do an all Nexus Chamber match and once again, Barrett retains the title looking stronger than ever. Then at Wrestlemania obviously, Cena goes on to win the main event but not after a very higly competitive and strong performance by Barrett. Then the next night on Raw Miz cashes in on Cena after his match and becomes the new champion because why not.
Don’t take my word for it though, let me know how you would have booked The Nexus differently in the comments below.
