When The Nexus arrived on Monday Night Raw, they immediately captured the attention of fans around the world. During the main event, John Cena v CM Punk, NXT Season One winner Wade Barrett appeared on the stage. Then his fellow NXT rookies came through crowd and destroyed everything. They destroyed everything and everyone and the crowd had no idea what to make of it. It was shocking, it was exciting and most importantly, it was new. This kicked off the big summer storyline as the forces of WWE, led by John Cena, tried to keep the Nexus at bay. What should have been a way to get eight new stars over turned into the worst example of John Cena tearing through young talent as for no discernible reason other than to make himself seem strong (which has never really been in question). The most egrious example of this took place at SummerSlam 2010, Team WWE v The Nexus. John Cena famously took a DDT on the exposed floor and went on to defeat Justin Gabriel and Wade Barrett single-handedly. Chris Jericho spoke about this incident on his podcast with Edge.
Chris Jericho:"He wanted to get DDT'd on the floor by Barrett, then kick out and beat them both. And you and I were like, that's the dumbest thing. That's just throwing it away for no reason."Edge:"They should have gone over because they were so hot."
They go on to say that Cena later admitted that he was wrong and the young guys should have gone over, but this single incident handicapped The Nexus angle beyond repair and for the next several months there was never any sense of danger or threat in anything they did.
