The Original WWE Nexus 8: Where Are They Now?
You're either Nexus, or...
Holy hell, was that formation angle something.
On the June 7, 2010 RAW, NXT Season 1 winner Wade Barrett entered the fray, ostensibly to take in the main event between CM Punk and John Cena. The camera then panned to Michael Tarver, in what was a phenomenal choice; the potent visual of his obscured face foreshadowed an act of unsettling criminality. Then, the remaining six contestants assaulted everybody at ringside before circling Cena on the ring apron. What followed was a genuinely disturbing beat-down; Barrett et al. brutalised Cena and helpless ringside officials alike before laying waste to the ring itself. It was pure chaos, so vivid and heightened that Daniel Bryan was fired afterwards for choking the pitiable Justin Roberts with his necktie. The lawless atmosphere had consumed him.
This was an instant rehabilitation the likes of which John Cena would have doffed his garish cap in appreciation of; these eight men were absolute jokes 20 minutes before that segment, and emerged from it a pack of f*cking wolves.
SummerSlam 2010 consumed the remaining seven.
Following the seven-on-seven Nexus Vs. Team WWE headline attraction, prime target John Cena very easily brushed off the faction, as if seven would-be stars were the imaginary dust on his shoulder rubbed off before the five knuckle shuffle. It took him just over a minute to recover from a spot that, logically, should have seen him written off television with a concussion.
Many of his opponents on the night didn't recover at all...
8. David Otunga
One of several members of the Nexus that was never going to make it with the armband removed, denting the "buried" narrative somewhat, David Otunga, with his Hollywood body and Razzies ring work, failed to make it even with the benefit of celebrity osmosis.
In an indictment of WWE's pre-NXT landscape, David Otunga - a slow, uncoordinated, error-prone and utterly indistinct in-ring worker you could barely buy as powerful in spite of his thick physique - reigned with a version of WWE Tag Team gold on two occasions. He partnered with John Cena under duress in the storyline and, you can imagine, reality. He then struck gold alongside fellow 'New' Nexus member Michael McGillicutty as WWE attempted, halfheartedly, to recapture the magic.
Otunga, irredeemable between the ropes, was sensibly transitioned into a primarily offscreen role as the legal advisor to John Laurinaitis. His in-ring stuff relegated to glorified cameos, Otunga quietly became inactive following one last go-round of the live event loop in 2015. Retained by WWE, Otunga in the years since has bounced between commentator and pre-show panelist roles, spouting banalities that nobody ever has ever remembered.
Not to pour too much soil over the poor sod's head, Otunga was good at something: law.
Probably should have stuck to it.