The WWE set up, on Raw, a situation where John Cena is either re-hired, or the other members of Nexus will kick Wade Barrett out. There are several ways this can play out.
First, Wade Barrett can simply be kicked out of Nexus. As a straight move, this is terrible. Wade is strong enough as a heel to continue against Cena alone, but it undermines the entire Nexus concept so far, as well as leaving the remainder of the group mid-card faces. As faces, they will quickly fade from relevance, becoming yet more faces in the crowd. Slater and Gabriel are still atrocious on the mic, while Otunga can’t talk, and Harris is a natural heel. None of this works out.
Cena could also simply be re-hired. That makes his firing a wash, a wasted angle and opportunity and angle. All that would result is a resuming of the initial back and forth feud between Cena and Nexus. There is also that Cena is far more compelling fired and more over than he has ever been in this role. Simply re-hiring Cena is not the way to go.
So how should WWE do this? I see two options.
First, there is having Wade be kicked out of Nexus. At this point, Cena can focus his attacks solely on Barrett, but, not expecting to have to watch his back for anyone else, end up jumped and badly beaten by Nexus, who were merely pretending to throw Wade out for the upper hand. This would truly put over Barrett as a mastermind, while finally giving WWE the impetus to get Cena off of television for awhile at the height of both his popularity and the audience’s sympathy with him. At that point, Barrett, belt or not, would be the most hated man in the company and could begin another reign of terror with Nexus.
The other real option is for Barrett to challenge David Otunga or, preferably, but not remotely likely, Justin Gabriel to a match at TLC for control of Nexus. If Wade wins, Cena is fired and he regains control of Nexus who will follow orders. If Wade loses, Otunga takes over Nexus and Wade will follow orders. In this case, even if Otunga wins through Cena interference, Cena can be re-hired, as a member of Nexus, with a new dynamic and the ability to assault Barrett, who isn’t the leader. If Wade won, we could resume this storyline of Cena attacking everyone, which is wildly over, until at least the Royal Rumble when he could finally have another clean match, preferably in a cage of some kind, for his freedom.
The WWE have booked themselves into a corner with the obvious direction. Only a change in the stated options makes any sense and adds heat to the angle, arguably the most-successful angle the WWE has run in years. Simply hitting reset and going back to where we were a few months back with the feud must not be an option. Keep the momentum and let the angle evolve.
