Nexus, as an idea, is falling apart. That’s a shame, as the group had a lot of potential, but to this day, they’re treated as jobbers and Wade Barrett. I get that this is a group of rookies whose strength is numbers and team work, but they should have gained some experience fighting the best of Raw, supposedly the best in the world, by now.
Now, I’m not asking for everyone to get Wade Barrett’s push in the group, but they are a stable of personalities that could get over and instead are background thugs. David Otunga, who at least gets personality and a role as The Rock to Barrett’s Farooq, still gets to look like a jobber in matches. I get that he’s bad, but if he’s being pushed, he needs to at least look respectable.
The answer to this dilemma is simple enough. The remainder of the group can be faceless assassins for whatever Barrett is doing, but before their heat is gone, they must all also have feuds of their own. The Raw mid-card is full of faces with no notable direction. Indeed, besides Cena, Morrison and Orton, no face has a current storyline (although Santino is part of the Morrison story).
Why not let Gabriel and Slater feud with the Hart Dynasty to help them develop? We’d get some very good matches and two young teams could grow together. Truth, as Cena’s supposed friend (although it was never really mentioned prior to this angle), is ready made for a feud with Otunga. If you want Mark Henry involved, switch from Otunga to McGuillicuty and Harris and let Otunga beat some mid-carders like Tatsu for credibility. If you really want to get wild, and this is easily my favorite idea, have Ted Dibiase come help Randy Orton for a mini-Legacy reunion and a major face turn. But these guys need something to do.
It is for this reason, Eric Bischoff was right when he called Nexus boring: they are boring as a group. Wade Barrett and John Cena? Intriguing as can be. The group? They’re there to just jump people. This is the one area TNA is easily outdoing WWE right now. While I’m not crazy about all the feuds, everyone in the Immortals and Fortune has a story. We get Jarrett torturing Samoa Joe, Abyss and The Pope, Jeff Hardy and Mr. Kennedy, and the entire group having taken out the likes of Kurt Angle, while chasing off Sting and Kevin Nash. Bischoff, meanwhile, is torturing RVD mentally, while Bisch and Jeff take on Matt Morgan for not caring about injuries. On top of their individual stories, they are making a concerted effort to take out all the top faces.
The same can be said of Fortune. The group has their big EV2.0 feud going on, while Ric Flair has his personal issue with Mick Foley, Kazarian and Doug Williams are fighting about being the final member, Beer Money are Enforcers, and AJ Styles has the TV Title. Everyone has an individual and group goal, so the groups are far better done and far more realized.
I never thought I’d be saying this, defending Eric Bischoff of all people, so soon after the abysmal Turning Point 2010 PPV, but TNA has their stories in order up and down the card in a way the WWE doesn’t. The problem there is that they continually use wrestlers I have little interest in seeing (EV2.0 for example), and when they do use guys I like, the execution is terrible (Samoa Joe for example). The WWE, meanwhile, has great execution on the angles they care about, like Barrett, Cena and Orton, and have a ton of guys I like in prominent spots (Daniel Bryan, Miz, Orton), but their not finding anything compelling for the majority of the card to do, and that, more than anything else, is why Nexus is failing and Raw is no longer must-watch.
