10 Biggest Wasted Opportunities In WWE
9. Missing The Point
On June 7th 1010, WWE ran one of the most revolutionary and exciting segments in the company’s history in the main event of Monday Night RAW.
The eight wrestlers that had comprisd season one of the WWE’s gameshow version of NXT (before it became the name for developmental, and the brightest spot on WWE programming) interrupted a match between CM Punk and John Cena, pulverising both men in a vicious gang-style assault, before taking things a step further than any other pro wrestling run-in had ever taken them before.
They attacked the referee, the cameramen, the timekeeper and the announcers. Everyone in the ring and around it was a target - the ring itself was a target. When the Nexus - as they would come to style themselves - left the arena, they’d dismantled Monday Night RAW.
That’s the kind of proper introduction that most pro wrestlers would kill for, and the Nexus looked like their careers had been made in one ten minute segment. However, over the next few months feuding with Cena, it became apparent that stardom wasn’t their destiny.
None of them were booked to be any kind of match for John Cena, singly or in batches: he would systematically wreck them all in matches and beatdown segments.
The faction’s leader, Barrett himself, was booked the strongest, but even he was second fiddle to most of the rest of the roster, and especially to Cena. At SummerSlam 2010, Cena booked himself to no sell his opponents’ offence to pin two people in the dying seconds of the match for the ‘underdog’ victory.
Not every member of the Nexus was automatically earmarked for greatness. However, the angle was incredible: a fresh, hip take on the nWo featuring young wrestlers hungry to make a name for themselves rather than greedy main eventers anxious to maintain their spot.
The Nexus had the potential to go anywhere, do anything, incorporate any talent on the roster. Instead, it limped to six months, and then another six if you count the do-nothing version of the stable that Punk was handed while waiting to run out his contract.