9. The Nexus - 2010
Another angle with all the potential in the world, only to fall victim to horrendous booking decisions. On the June 7th edition of Raw, a stable of NXT stars made their debut during the main event between John Cena and CM Punk. Led by Wade Barrett, they leapt the crowd barrier and destroyed everybody, from the wrestlers to the referee to the ring announcer (an incident which saw Daniel Bryan temporarily fired, for uncomfortable parallels between his choking of Justin Roberts and Chris Benoit's Crossface). The Nexus were fresh, exciting and dominant. They interfered in the main event matches of Fatal 4 Way and Money In The Bank, and a title reign surely loomed for leader Wade Barrett. A 7-on7 match was booked for SummerSlam, pitting the Nexus against a WWE team. However, in a match the hot new stable should clearly have won, Cena overturned a climactic 2-on-1 situation with ease, pinning Justin Gabriel and submitting Barrett to become the match's sole survivor. That loss was the beginning of the end for the Nexus. Their momentum would never truly recover, and they quickly saw their subsequent schemes foiled by Cena at every turn. Eventually, Barrett lost a feud-ending TLC match in which Cena literally buried him under a mountain of chairs. The symbology was very apt.