The Story of… John Cena vs. Nexus at SummerSlam 2010

We’re just days away from the 2026 SummerSlam (a 2-night spectacular from the great state of Minnesota) and why not dive into one more “Story of” that focuses on a past SummerSlam? Last time, we covered the introduction of The Fiend and his in-ring debut at SummerSlam 2019, destroying poor Finn Balor. This time around, we’re covering a hot topic under the “LOL Cena Wins” umbrella, as John Cena battles the Nexus with the big blow off at SummerSlam 2010.

Before we jump into today’s video, how did we get here? It starts with the death of ECW. No, not the actual promotion ECW, but the ECW brand created under the WWE umbrella and launched with a weekly program on the Sci-Fi (later rebranded SyFy) Network in June 2006. In February 2010, the decision was made that hour time slot would no longer be occupied by ECW, and in place of it there would be a Game Show called NXT that would crown the next breakout Superstar, where rookies would be paired with pros (WWE veterans) and all kinds of nonsense would take place. Competing on the inaugural season of NXT included the following (with assigned Pros in parenthesis)…

Wade Barrett (Chris Jericho)
David Otunga (R-Truth)
Justin Gabriel (Matt Hardy)
Heath Slater (Christian)
Darren Young (CM Punk)
Skip Sheffield (William Regal)
Daniel Bryan (The Miz)
Michael Tarver (Carlito)

There would be physical challenges and matches, and after so many weeks, wrestlers would be eliminated based on pro polls (and other storyline-related factors). When the dust settled after 15 weeks of programming, Wade Barrett walked away the winner, earning himself a contract AND a Championship Match on a PPV of his choosing.

Now that we are all caught up, we open with the reason that I briefly jumped back into following WWE, as we’re near the conclusion of the June 7th, 2010 episode of WWE Raw, a special “Viewer’s Choice” Edition featuring Raw and Smackdown Superstars. In the Main Event, it was John Cena taking on the fan-voted CM Punk, but before we could go to a finish, the eight men who participated on NXT, with Wade Barrett acting as the leader of the group, assaulted John Cena before turning their attention to…. Well, literally everyone and everything at ringside; Matt Striker, Jerry Lawler, Justin Roberts, along with ringside crew were all targeted, ringside dismantled and ring torn apart before picking up where they left off with Cena, each taking a turn in hitting him with a big maneuver, and CM Punk (in his masked phase after losing his hair in a match with Rey Mysterio) unwisely making an effort in trying to get some shots in before quickly being cut off as well.

With a hot angle unlike anything we had ever seen on WWE programming (and replicated a handful of times to diminishing returns, like Retribution in 2020), there was a new buzz around WWE after what felt like a very safe, uninspired stretch as we transitioned into the HD/PG Era, and genuine excitement over where this group of fresh faces (including Independent darling Bryan Danielson, now going by the name Daniel Bryan) could go… well, except for D-Bry, who was terminated shortly after the show, with the reasoning that he went too far with his actions, strangling Justin Roberts with his tie, an act deemed too violent and uncomfortable with the direction they were going at the time with their product.

Bryan’s termination was woven into storylines, as the following week on Raw (June 14th), Wade Barrett and the rest of the NXT competitors came to the ring to address their actions (with the ringside crew abandoning their stations to sell the previous week’s havoc). Things quickly go sour between them and Raw GM Bret Hart (yeah, I forgot about that one), with them offering demands like guaranteed contracts and first-class accommodation, but instead, Bret not only denies those requests of the unsigned talent, but strips Barrett of his NXT prize (a Championship opportunity) AND terminates his contract. Later that night, John Cena does his usual monologue, acknowledging that he understands the reason behind their actions, but also issuing a challenge without pressing charges, and SHOCKER, they’re still in the building in their ring gear! Their attack goes awry, as Cena is joined in the ring by Evan Bourne, R-Truth, JERRY LAWLER, William Regal, and Santino, and the brawl is on, with more Superstars, and heavy hitters like Mark Henry, Randy Orton and Sheamus, helping push back the NXT group.

If you thought that was the last of it for the night, NOT SO FAST GOOD SIRS (OR MADAMS), as the Main Event of John Cena and Randy Orton vs Sheamus and Edge was disrupted by MORE NXT COMPETITOR SHENANIGANS! Poor Bret Hart is paying the consequences for his actions, thrown inside a Limousine and repeatedly rammed into other vehicles in the parking garage, leaving him a broken mess, with a warning that he better have changed his tune about those contracts by Sunday Night (which also happens to be the night of their one-and-done Fatal-4-Way PPV). Unfortunately, we don’t have Bret’s answer (at least not via this compilation), as the chaos continues, first with an assault on the Hart Dynasty, Evan Bourne and R-Truth, and then interrupting the WWE Championship Fatal-4-Way, with Sheamus pinning Cena for the Title during the commotion, and then Cena taking another group whooping to close out the show.

The following night on Raw, we find out that Bret Hart is out as Raw General Manager, replaced by… *deep sigh* The Anonymous General Manager. ANYWAY, Wade Barrett’s contract AND Championship opportunity were reinstated, and the other six men were given contracts as well. Now that Sheamus is the reigning Champion, he might need to watch himself, as the target could shift to him. In the Main Event, it was Sheamus defending against Cena when, you guessed it, Wade and Friends rushed the ring, bringing the match to an abrupt end, with Sheamus running away through the crowd while Cena again took a beating. I swear, the “Beat up John Cena” Club must have a ridiculously high member count.

We jump ahead to July 5th (Wade missed a week due to getting his work visa in order) with Cena fed up with week after week of outnumbered assaults and bring a fair fight to the newly named Nexus, leading a group consisting of Randy Orton, R-Truth, Evan Bourne, John Morrison, and The Hart Dynasty… but then Chris Jericho, Sheamus, Edge, and The Usos (YES, THE WERE AROUND IN 2010) attack the WWE coalition, and the Nexus escape untouched. Later in the show, Wade Barrett is alone with Cena, looking for a truce, with veiled threats of violence if Cena doesn’t accept. Cena reluctantly reaches out for a handshake, but yanks Wade in for an AA, only for the Nexus (or “Nexus 7” as called by our broadcast team) to come out for the save. The WWE locker room empties again, with some fresh faces getting shine, including Great Khali, Yoshi Tatsu, Goldust and Vladimir Kozlov. Everyone escapes except for Darren Young, who Cena pounds on all around the ring, only briefly interrupted by the announcement from the Anonymous GM that because of his actions, he’ll face the Nexus in a 7-on-1 handicap match NEXT WEEK.

The match goes mostly as planned, though it’s only 6-on-1 with Young out due to a legitimate injury suffered during a live event. Cena fights valiantly, but the numbers are too much, and he takes the loss following a 450 splash from Gabriel. A post-match assault is foiled, as Cena has an unlikely assist from Sheamus, the man who took the WWE Title from him and will defend against inside a Cage at Money in the Bank. As expected, Cena’s chances to win are thwarted as the Nexus do everything to keep him from escaping the cage first, allowing Sheamus to retain. The next night on Raw (July 19th), we detour briefly from Cena, as the Nexus interrupts Edge and Chris Jericho, first assaulting Edge, with Jericho cheering it on and applying the Walls of Jericho once he was thoroughly beaten, but then Barrett said Jericho falsely taking credit for the group’s success (Jericho was Barrett’s Pro for the 1st season of NXT), and Jericho gets similar treatment.

Now that we had five minutes without Cena involved, Cena wants to meet the Nexus in the ring again and offers them a truce, but Barrett quickly declines. There will be no peace unless Cena JOINS the Nexus. Wade laughably says Cena will achieve 10-times the success he already has in WWE (… insert your own smart ass joke here). Cena can either leave the ring like the coward he really is, or he can stand there and receive the most vicious beating ever administered… AND WE DON’T GET RESOLUTION! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! OK, since the WWE Vault cut it for whatever reason, I’ll throw it in here myself; Cena leaves the ring and reveals his “truce” was all a test (heh) and the he quietly put together a team to combat The Nexus at SummerSlam; Edge, John Morrison, R-Truth, The Great Khali, Chris Jericho and Bret Hart! If that wasn’t enough, Team WWE rushes the ring and sends The Nexus running.

There’s no peace in Camp WWE (hey, remember that show on the WWE Network?), as Chris Jericho refuses to be part of Cena’s team and demands he be the leader. Cena can’t help himself but patronizes Jericho with some team name suggestions before telling Jericho that they may not get along, but Jericho can do it for THIS BUSINESS. Jericho sees Cena the way everyone sees the Nexus; a threat to everybody on the roster, except Cena has the support of the gullible fans. By the end of the night, there’s fighting among the team, and a week later, Edge cracks under the pressure and quits the team! More cracks in the foundation form, as Jericho walks away from the team following a match with Cena, and settles his differences with Edge in their agreement that Cena is a bogus jerk.

Fast forward to August 9th, and Bret Hart is trying to reason with Jericho over his decision, that letting Nexus win doesn’t help him in the end, he’ll be a man without a country and this is his chance to be a man and make things right, but Jericho doesn’t see it the same way. No one can replace himself or Edge on the team, and they’re screwed without them. MEANWHILE, Nexus beats the crap out of Tyson Kidd and David Smith. Bret’s words got inside Jericho’s head, who is now second-guessing things, because they’ll look bad if WWE wins without them, and be on the outside looking in if the Nexus wins… so the new plan is to take out Cena and Bret so that the match at SummerSlam will be canceled!

Oh, and Great Khali gets taken out, because he’s a broken shell of himself and doesn’t need to do much to convince us his legs are gone. The Miz approaches Cena and Bret about the openings on the team. After all, he’s Mr. Money in the Bank AND the United States Champion, and wants to be offered a spot on the team from both men. They oblige and Miz says he’ll let them know on Sunday. WHAT A JERK. In the Main Event (for August 9th), it’s Cena and Bret vs Edge and Jericho with The Nexus serving as Lumberjacks. The usual chicanery happens and the match is thrown out as Nexus gets too involved. The 7 men of Nexus enter the ring to face off with Bret and Cena, but here’s Morrison and R-Truth to show support. Jericho and Edge walk up the ramp, but stop mid-way, give each other the look and rush into the ring. We get the big Team WWE vs Nexus stand-off! The hard camera is shaking and the crowd erupts as the two sides meet in the middle, with the Nexus quickly tucking tail and heading for safety. THE MATCH IS STILL ON… BUT WILL MIZ MAKE UP HIS MIND?! The day of SummerSlam, after more pleas from Jericho and Edge, and milking it for all it could be worth, Miz finally says that he will fill the vacant spot of Team WWE. HURRAY FOR THE MIZ! MICHAEL COLE BE SO PROUD!

7-on-7 Elimination Tag Team Match:
John Cena, Chris Jericho, Edge, R-Truth, John Morrison, Bret Hart, and The Miz vs. The Nexus (Wade Barrett, Justin Gabriel, Heath Slater, David Otunga, Skip Sheffield, Michael Tarver and Darren Young)
Team WWE gets individual entrances, with The Miz coming out last… BUT HOLD THE PHONE CHAMP. The Miz will NOT be on Team WWE, as John Cena didn’t have time to wait for an answer and went and found someone who DIDN’T waste time giving him an answer; FORMER NXT PARTICIPANT AND NEXUS MEMBER DANIEL BRYAN! Michael Cole won’t be happy about that… oh, we’re also entering Heel Michael Cole territory, but we’re not touching that one. Not yet, at least. Team WWE quickly clears the ring, forcing the Nexus to regroup at ringside.

Whatever hype Barrett was going for doesn’t work so well, as Darren Young is taken to school by Bryan and taps out to the LeBell Lock at 0:42. Nexus is facing adversity for the first time in WWE! After Justin Gabriel survives an offensive flurry from Jericho and Truth, Tarver runs wild for the Nexus for about 20-seconds before being cut off and eliminated by Morrison’s Starship Pain at 3:36, giving Team WWE a 7-on-5 advantage. Nexus might be down, but they don’t lack confidence with the numbers game against them, and it’s Big Skip Sheffield who slows it down and helps close the gap, first taking out John Morrison (with an assist from Gabriel) with a lariat at 7:32, then quickly putting Truth down just moments later at 7:59, and just like that, we’re all evened up.

Momentum stays on the side of the Nexus, as they cut off the ring while working over Jericho. Bret gets the hot tag, laying it into Heath Slater (who seemed to be the guy trusted the most, based on live events that Bret was working around this time). Bret has Slater in position for the Sharpshooter, but he gives it up when a chair is thrown into the ring, and he gets himself disqualified for hitting Sheffield with it at 12:08. YOU BOZO! Well, Sheffield is still compromised, so Jericho sneaks in to hit him with the Code Breaker and Edge puts Sheffield down with the Spear at 13:13.

Since Gabriel isn’t getting mentioned much with eliminations taking center stage, he’s been part of two extensive sequences that really put him over for his toughness and resilience. Now it’s Edge’s turn to take a beating on the Nexus side of the ring. The Rated R Superstar creates separation, but instead of going for a tag, attempts his signature DDT, only for Barrett to counter. Otunga gives up control immediately, allowing Jericho to get the tag. He runs wild on Otunga, hitting the Lionsault and finishing Otunga’s night with the Walls of Jericho at 19:13. Momentum is back with Team WWE as Jericho punishes Slater at ringside, but Slater avoids an attack, sending Jericho into Cena on the apron, and Sweetness (a modified jumping russian leg sweep is the best I can describe) puts Jericho away at 20:05. If that’s not enough of a surprise, Edge is too distracted barking at Cena, and SLATER ROLLS UP EDGE FOR THREE AT 20:40!

Edge and Jericho are a bit sore about their elimination and take it out on Cena, who is fed back into the ring where he’s easy pickings for the three remaining members of Nexus. It’s a slow-paced heat segment, but the crowd does start stirring after being mostly quiet for a large chunk of the match. Bryan finally tags back in, hitting Slater with a release German suplex and a series of kicks in the corner. Bryan with the flip-over escape out of the corner and clothesline, followed by a tope suicida. Back in the ring, Bryan with the missile dropkick and the LeBell Lock ends Slater’s night at 29:02. The warm feelings for Bryan are over as The Miz runs out, KO’s him with the Money in the Bank briefcase, and Barrett casually covers at 29:32.

We’re down to Cena (still beat up on the outside) versus Barrett and Gabriel. The Nexus Duo take turns punishing the leader of Team WWE, with Cena getting a brief hope spot before the numbers game cuts him off and it’s back to everyone’s favorite pastime; Beat Up John Cena. With Cena incapacitated… we go to the floor? Gabriel and Barrett strip off the protective padding AND JOHN CENA TAKES A DDT ON THE EXPOSED CONCRETE. Barrett positions Cena in the ring for Gabriel to hit his 450 splash, but Cena finds the power inside to avoid contact and Cena covers him for three at 34:50. Barrett looks on in disbelief and moves in for the kill, but Cena picks the leg and Barrett taps to the STF at 35:15, making John Cena the sole survivor and the hero of the WWE. WOW. We really rushed through that finish, didn’t we? In less than 90-seconds, Cena took a DDT on concrete and still managed to knock off arguably the two most important members of the group with little effort. That is something else. As for the match as a whole, there’s spots that worked, spots that didn’t, and the crowd was surprisingly low-energy for a lot of it. There’s just too many guys and eliminations to care about, so we end up getting something like we had here; rapid fire eliminations, heat segment, rinse and repeat. They hardly are must-watch matches, often falling in the “very poor” and “reasonably entertaining” territory, and this was mostly the latter, even if I found the last sequence of events unbelievable.

The finish is one of the more classic examples of “LOL Cena Wins” material, and considering how the last few minutes played out, it’s hard to argue against those claims. Maybe if the falls of Gabriel and Barrett were spaced out better, and maybe if Cena doesn’t have his coconut cracked on concrete moments before, things would be seen differently. Honestly, watching it all back in this condensed form… outside of trying to establish Wade Barrett as a major player right out of the gates, there’s almost zero reason to care about the other six men. There’s no clear pecking order unless you’re really hunting for differences, so it’s just a group of guys with little personality (we’re also just going by what was presented here, not during the NXT season) standing there while Wade does his best to hang in promo battles (and mostly succeeds).

The easy part was the ambush angles that got them immediate heat and helped them get recognized, but then we just kept annoying Cena week after week which can become a bit tiring, especially watched in this type of compilation, but then we got the bigger picture of the Team WWE vs. Nexus reveal, and while I wouldn’t call the Nexus background characters at this point, the drama surrounding Cena, Jericho, and Edge, and later the Miz, took center stage. There was a decent effort in pushing Sheffield as the tank of Nexus with his extended sequence in the early stages of the match, and Slater being allowed to hang and score two falls (fluke or not) on established Main Event talent was unexpected.

The way the match ended suggests that was it for Nexus, they were done and the ride was already over, but nope, while Cena winning was a derailing that some fans wouldn’t recover from in accepting the Nexus as anything more than your standard foil, the group continued to be a steady presence on Raw, further advancing their rivalry with John Cena, before a new leader took over, fragmenting the original group, and giving birth to a new faction… but that’s a story for another day.

What did you think of the Nexus and their arrival? Were they given a raw deal at SummerSlam or was it the right decision to put Cena over? Did you lose interest in the product going forward? Leave your comments down below and thanks for reading.