The Footnotes of Wrestling – The Return of The Run: With Nexus, WWE Finding its Groove

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The Nexus story may very well go down in history as the story that got WWE back on track.

It’s been nearly ten years since WWE shot itself in the face and essentially gave up producing great television. The ten-year anniversary of Wrestlemania XVII is coming up in a few months, and that phenomenal show marked the end of WWE as important viewing. Every single angle, character, and attempt at attention since then has been haphazard, half-baked, fan-serviced, flawed, and often ill-conceived. Not every show in the last ten years has been bad; in fact, you could say they’ve put on some damn good theatre since then, but it’s been so spotty you could never call it a run. But this Nexus story has been running since May. It’s November now, and I’m not the only one who feels it’s got at least until Wrestlemania to stay vibrant.

WWE’s PG rules kicked in sometime in 2008, but it wasn’t until this year that they really figured out how best to create wrestling stories within the new confines. They’ve replaced blood and shock value for forcing characters to face difficult consequences. They’ve replaced characters with shades of gray with archetypes that force each other to the edge of good and evil. If the Attitude Era was The Original Series, the current cast is Next Generation: stiffer-acting, safer, but far more interesting to study; existing in a world where actions have repercussions and fallout, where everyone has a memory and an agenda.

The Fallout is the most interesting thing, of course. It’s one thing to have one great story line; it’s something else entirely to string five or six great stories end to end. WWE did this from 1997 to 2001, and they haven’t done it since. I think of the Nexus story much in the way I thought of the Hart Foundation story in 1997: great, but with a clear ending and an unclear follow-up. The question, of course, is what will be the equivalent in 2011 to DX, Austin, and McMahon. What part of this story will spread to others? What will keep us watching after the problem of the Nexus has been solved?

If you’ll allow me to speculate, I’d put some serious money on The Miz and Randy Orton creating something pretty special next year. It might involve Edge in a novel way, too. There’s still a lot of character left to mine in those three. But more than any actual character, I see a tide-change in the actual presentation of the program. I’ve been hoping for this for years, and 2010 proved that both WWE and TNA were willing to fiddle with the theatrical space. I not only see this continuing, but I also see them acknowledging it as theatrical space.

That’s the one major undiscovered country in wrestling, of course. We know the show is scripted. The production crew knows the show is scripted. But there’s a veil between the audience and the show, and it’s an exciting proposition that this veil might be pulled.

All logic be damned, Survivor Series may be an important show after all.

K Sawyer Paul is the author of This is Sports Entertainment: The Secret Diary of Vince McMahon, co-editor of Fair to Flair, and curator at Aggressive Art.