101 Shocking Wrestling Plans You Won't Believe Almost Happened
42. Nexus Reunites
Former WWE star Darren Young sensationally claimed in 2020 that Nexus almost returned to TV during the closed door pandemic "ThunderDome" days. Apparently, the rekindled renegades would've helped put a stop to RETRIBUTION and battled the vandals on episodes of Raw and SmackDown throughout the summer.
Then, as quickly as they'd thought about bringing Nexus back into the fold, WWE bosses realised that the comeback would be neutered due to a lack of natural ambience/crowd noise. So, they scrapped the entire thing and there was no reprise for members like Young, Heath Slater, Wade Barrett or Skip Sheffield/Ryback.
Back then, neither Barrett nor Ryback were still with the company, and they'd only just let Slater go in April. Heath did return for a one off spot on the 6 July Raw, but that was done to get Drew McIntyre over as new WWE Champion more than anything related to Nexus.
RETRIBUTION, complete with members like T-BAR, Mace and Slapjack, went to the dogs relatively quickly anyway. WWE's creative team turned the group into cartoonish jokes before losing interest in pushing them as a serious threat to the rest of the roster. In other words, there wouldn't have been much for Nexus to stop.
More recently, Barrett has cracked jokes about his spin off stable The Corre when doing commentary, and it's unlikely he'll ever pull on a pair of boots again. Without him, a Nexus reprise wouldn't mean much. It looks like it was 2020 or nothing for these NXT originals.
It's a laugh wondering what Nexus 2K20 would've looked like.