It was great when The Nexus attacked John Cena to end the June 7, 2010 edition of Monday Night Raw. That was one of the best moments in the history of Raw just because it was a totally random attack out of nowhere that nobody expected. It should have led to the Nexus stable becoming huge stars. Instead, it flopped. Why? Because WWE protected John Cena too much like usual. SummerSlam 2010 was memorable for what didn't happen. They set up a 7 on 7 tag match with Cena's team against Wade Barrett's Nexus team. With no title on the line or anything else significant, The Nexus should have won in order to give them the biggest wins of their careers. Instead, Cena lasted until the end for his team, survived a DDT on the floor and beat two guys within two minutes to win the match. Chris Jericho and Edge, both of whom were on Cena's team, revealed on Jericho's podcast years later that Cena had the finish changed so he could go over. Here's the podcast conversation from Jericho and Edge.
Chris Jericho: It was Team WWE vs. Team Nexus, and the finish boiled down to and in there, but it was Cena against a couple of them. John wanted to do things a certain way and we told him youre wrong. He did it anyways, and it sucked. And then after he came over to us and said I should have listened to you, but I wasnt seeing it that way.' Edge: I remember. I was like, fine Im out of the match by that point. Chris Jericho: He wanted to get DDTd on the floor by Barrett, then kick out and beat them both. And you and I were like, thats the dumbest thing. Thats just throwing it away for no reason. Edge: They should have gone over because they were so hot. Chris Jericho: We were fighting for Barrett to go over. And wheres Wade Barrett now?
Cena continued to feud with The Nexus as they made him join the stable at one point against his will, then he was fired for about a month even though he was on TV more than most of the WWE roster while he was "fired" in the storyline and then it ended with Cena beating Barrett easily to end the year. What was the point of the feud? To have Cena bury a new stable of younger wrestlers? It shouldn't have been that, but that's what happened. Cena's feud with The Nexus really was one of the worst in wrestling history and definitely the worst of Cena's career because it went on for so long without accomplishing much at all.
John wrote at WhatCulture from December 2013 to December 2015. It was fun, but it's over for now. Follow him on Twitter @johnreport. You can also send an email to mrjohncanton@gmail.com with any questions or comments as well.
