10 Craziest Wrestling Moments That Ever Happened Live

9. The Nexus Debut And Destroy RAW

June 7th 2010 seemed like just another Monday Night RAW. The theme for the night was that the fans would choose the match stipulations and/or opponents, and John Cena had just had a heel CM Punk chosen to face him in the main event. Punk, fresh off a feud with Rey Mysterio in which he€™d had his head shaved, had resorted to wearing a mask and was in the height of his Straight Edge Society heel gimmick. After some quality back and forth action foreshadowing their brilliant series in 2011, Cena was about to finish Punk off when Wade Barrett appeared on the stage and began to saunter down the ramp to ringside. Barrett had won the first season of the game show version of NXT the previous week, and was hotly tipped at the time€ what people weren€™t expecting was that the rest of the cast of NXT €“ the losers, including a pre-beard event Daniel Bryan, a pre-outing Darren Young, a pre-Ryback Skip Sheffield and a pre-jobber-to-the-legends Heath Slater €“ would follow him.

The men took out Punk and the SES at ringside, viciously beating them down, before all entering the ring to annihilate Cena 8 on 1. The ex-NXT rookies, all wearing €˜N€™ armbands, then proceeded to dismantle RAW. The announcers were taken out, Jerry Lawler having the announce table turned over on top of him. Justin Roberts, the ring announcer, was stripped, beaten and choked out with his own tie. Without announcers, the next few minutes played out in silence, as the guardrails and timekeeper€™s area were taken apart, and the beginning of a complete ring takedown occurred€ before the Nexus, as the stable would become known, proceeded to flatten Cena all over again with clotheslines and several of their finishers. It was unexpected, savage and brilliant, but not without precedent€ the angle was reminiscent of the debut of the Outsiders on WCW Nitro and the formation of the NWO, one of the most profitable storylines in wrestling history. Sadly, WWE would tank the dismount on the big money angle.

A storyline that could have been used to get Barrett over as a charismatic killer in the ring and given the best of his stablemates the chance to shine, instead acted as yet another fast food meal for Cena over the following weeks. The face-that-runs-the-place made short work of the heels, memorably no-selling much of their offence and treating them like children. The angle didn€™t survive long past that.