10 Wrestlers Whose WWE Careers Were Derailed By John Cena
1. The Nexus
Of all the careers John Cena has inadvertently derailed, this might be the worst.
The Nexus literally tore the house down in the 2010 debut. Destroying the ringside area (and everyone around it - Cena included), the disgruntled group of first season NXT rookies were white-hot from day one, embarking on the kind of tear that’s only been matched by The Shield since.
They had the perfect leader, too. Wade Barrett was a complete superstar: great in the ring and on the mic, he was tall, ripped, and carried himself with real authority. It looked like success was all but certain for Barrett upon his reveal as the group’s leader, but it wasn’t to be.
You can argue that a number of wrestlers on this list never had a particularly high ceiling anyway, but not Barrett. The Englishman was everything Vince McMahon looked for in a top star, and the way his career panned-out has been nothing short of egregious.
Cena soon became the Nexus’ number one rival, and after reportedly refusing to put the group over at SummerSlam 2010, he poured a big bucket of ice all over the stable’s white-hot momentum. Barrett tapped to Cena’s STF to conclude the PPV’s 7 on 7 WWE vs. Nexus elimination match, and while The Nexus persisted, they never recovered.
There’s no telling how big Barrett and The Nexus could’ve become had they never ran afoul of John Cena, but we’ll never find out.