The Nexus of Wade Barrett, John Cena and the WWE Championship: Spotlight on John Cena, Part 5
Another week has gone by, another John Cena Spotlight. This time, we’ll dive into his rivalry with the Nexus. Let’s go, shall we.
June 7th, 2010. Monday Night Raw. On this night, a new faction made their presence felt. The faction? The Nexus. They interfered during the John Cena vs CM Punk match. The group was made up of all 8 contestants of the first season of NXT, with Wade Barrett as the leader. The group would go on to cost Cena his WWE Championship at the Fatal 4 Way PLE to Sheamus, and his Steel Cage rematch at Money in the Bank.
At SummerSlam, John Cena would form an alliance with Edge, Chris Jericho, John Morrison, R-Truth, Bret Hart, and the returning Daniel Bryan, who was fired shortly after the Nexus debuted by Wade Barrett four not fitting in with the groups ways. Daniel Bryan had replaced The Great Khali. Team WWE would go on to defeat The Nexus at SummerSlam in a 7 on 7 elimination tag match, with Cena last eliminating Wade Barrett.
The rivalry between Cena and Nexus would continue for the next 5 months. During that 5 month span, Wade Barrett and Cena would have off at Hell in a Cell, where if Cena had lost, he would join Nexus, and if he’d win, Nexus would disband. Barrett won this match, forcing Cena to join the group, and followed that up by having Cena team with David Otunga to challenge Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes for the WWE Tag Team Championships at Bragging Rights, winning them in the process.
Cena would also be forced to help Barrett during his WWE Championship match against Orton, causing a DQ win for Barrett, but not winning the championship. The next night on Raw, Barrett forced Ortunga to lay down and take the pinfall loss to Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel, fellow Nexus members, for the Tag Team Championships.
Wade Barrett would receive another WWE Championship opportunity against Randy Orton at Survivor Series with Cena as the referee, with the added stipulation of if Barrett didn’t win the WWE Championship, Cena would be fired. Orton would win the match, and Cena was swiftly fired.
Cena would give a farewell speech the following night on Raw before interfering in the rematch of the previous nights main event, costing Barrett the championship again. The following week, Cena would show up in the crowd as a fa, and would then start taking out members of Nexus, one at a time, stating he would do so, despite not being unemployed. On the December 13th episode of Raw, Barrett would rehire Cena and challenge him to a Chairs match at TLC, which Cena would win.
Cena would be off TV between TLC and January 17th, 2011, where he return to face CM Punk, which ended in a no contest after Cena would be attacked by the newest member of Nexus, the debuting Mason Ryan. At the Royal Rumble, the Cena vs Nexus feud would end after Cena would eliminate most of the Nexus members before being eliminated by WWE Champion, The Miz.
Join us next time, as we continue this journey down the John Cena path.
PPV + PLE Content. Northern Adelaide suburbs resident with a lifelong passion for professional wrestling since the age of 14. What drew Rhys to wrestling was the antics of Eddie Guerrero and the freestyles of John Cena, and has been hooked ever since. Currently, Rhys watches WWE and AEW programing. This passion for wrestling has led to Rhys writing for PW Down Under, where he has become the resident PPV guy.
