The BEST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2026)

17. 2010 | The Nexus Formation Angle

Look, the individual members of the Nexus minus Daniel Bryan never stood a chance of headlining WrestleMania. 

Wade Barrett was the best of the lot, but he wasn’t ready. With the fullness of time, as counterproductive as the SummerSlam 2010 main event finish was, WWE should probably receive more credit for mapping out such a hot moderate needle-mover of an angle with such minimal resources. David Otunga and Michael Tarver were in it, for God’s sake. Heath Slater made significantly more sense in his role as an obnoxious prelim jobber, and yet was, for a brief time, taken seriously as a violent, disruptive hooligan. That’s not all-time bad booking; if anything, that is a major achievement. 

The problem with the Nexus was that the June 2010 formation angle was too effective, too shocking, too transgressive. It was almost literally pro wrestling magic because it was an illusion. 

The motive was inspired - seven humiliated guys, stigmatised as greenhorn punchlines on the mean-spirited NXT gameshow, banding together to destroy their oppressors - and the scene was a complete tonal upheaval of everything you thought you knew about WWE. It felt like it went too far because it did. Bryan was infamously fired for choking ring announcer Justin Roberts with his necktie in a scene that did much of the heavy lifting, in retrospect. 

But the whole thing was incredible, and by peeling back the ring apron, the imagery of WWE actually being destroyed, while on-the-nose, was obviously very convincing. Fans were prepared to buy into Wade Barrett as a future WrestleMania headliner there and then.