Nexus Invasion: The Angle That Started My Dislike Of WWE

Nexus Invasion: The Angle That Started My Dislike Of WWE
#nexxus #wwe #prowrestling
For most of the time since WWF/E became popular in the 1980s, the company was seen by wrestling fans as a good, if not weird to some, variation of the pro-wrestling genre. That started to change in the 2000s.
After the end of the Monday Night War, and with no or little competition to speak of, World Wrestling Entertainment seemed to be getting stale. In addition, fans of the industry beyond WWE were starting to grow disenchanted with the way the company presented itself and new wrestlers to the system as "rookies" or "less than" which was something not done before.
Fourteen years after the angle shocked many WWE fans out of that complacency, we look back at the Nexus invasion angle from how well it started to how quickly it deteriorated. Was it the catalysts for a large number of fans to seek wrestling elsewhere, thus leading to the revival of non-WWE pro-wrestling in the 2010s?
Rassslin Rantin
Nexus Invasion: The Angle That Started My Dislike Of WWE
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[@rassslinRant]

Before the "WWE is awesome" fans start typing, there will be two more videos in this series. One will be about when I first became a WWF fan and the other will cover when they (in my opinion) got better a few years ago.

[@blackjack23able]

To me it start to suck around 2007 but my last straw was when HHH went over Sting at Wrestlemania. I was crushed & I grew a distain for it.

[@planescaped]

I remember the last thing I watched on WWE -Snitzky punting Lita and Kane's crepe baby into the audience. I just had a moment where I thought, "why am I watching this?" and I didn't have an answer. I had been falling off of WWE for a while at that point as Evolution was so freaking exhausting, but that was the exact moment when I asked myself that question. Haven't watched WWE since.

[@jaymac8421]

The Super Cena crap is what turned me away from WWE but around 2014 I was a big fan of NXt and that led me to NJPW in 2017.

[@JonathonFailsAtLife]

General wrestling fan from 98 to 05. I fell off but came back around the time Punk and Taker were starting to feud so I missed the Nexus. WWE had me until about 2015 when I started getting to only watch NXT and main roster highlights, but I was watching NJPW, ROH, and Impact religiously. By 2017, I was done with the main roster WWE, but that was the pinnacle of the global wrestling boom, and the best era of wrestling IMO.

[@charlesshoffner4201]

The DDT at SummerSlam, followed by Super Cena emerging, is the moment that killed it for me. I couldn't take WWE seriously anymore at that point. I went from a diehard to a casual real quick. I wouldn't watch unless I knew Punk or Bryan had something interesting going. And even then, I would turn to see if their segments were on TV. If, not, I changed the channel.

[@JuanMorales-yr8pr]

I was so gone from WWE at the time I only heard tid bits. After the Monday night wars I think I watched for a little while longer but luckily we soon get ROH touring through Chicago and TNA was up and coming so my interest was over there

[@anastasi2012]

Cena's full transformation from Dr. Of Thuganomics to 12 year old boy scout around 2005/2006ish. I couldn't watch Raw or Smackdown until Punk and Bryan got hot. I watched Afterburn and Bottom Line at 2am to keep up with the ppvs and the bigger matches but the rest of the product was unwatchable. Same from 2015-2020 minus NXT. With a few exceptions, it was just terrible. In a perfect world Vince would have at least stepped down from the head of creative in 2010. By then it was like watching Disney teenage stuff and goofy, indecent, adolescent nonsense. (Natty farting?) It was just stupid. But like you said, there were some cool isolated matches and moments during that time frame aside from the nonsense.

[@hawklindbergh]

I was an older male who adored Cena back then, and frankly I’m getting a bit sick and tired of people like you trying to say that the Super Cena era wasn’t entertaining. I had to put up with crap from fans like you for cheering over the “cheesy boy scout”, and frankly I thought Punk and Bryan were dull and nowhere as entertaining as Cena. Seriously, can we stop with this anti Cena shit?

[@alm5266]

After Chris Benoit choked his family to death in 2007, there is no way WWE would allow choking on their TV shows, that why Bryan got released.

[@xwf1000v3]

This is interesting. My distain for WWE is when after CM Punk cut that Pipebomb promo. It showed me that Vince McMahon was Out of touch & have been waiting for 13 years to have him removed but it happened around last year & ever since then WWE is Great again in my eyes.

[@paralyzerzeta4305]

I got into wrestling via a Monday Night Raw episode in 2005. I had recently joined the IWC in 2008 so when this went down I was all over the coverage of the angle but needless to say it ended up disappointing the hell out of me especially when the Cena joining the Nexus stuff went nowhere.

[@Imhim247]

Nexus angle should've put over. Sting sould've won over triple H. The products got stale since then. Them two is the reason why I dislikes WWE

[@sheets75]

I never saw the Nexus stuff beyond the "highlights" - I think I was still on my post-Benoit hiatus at the time. I did start putting Raw back on out of curiosity after a while, but found the shows consistently awful and I was only watching because it was basically the only wrestling I could see on TV. Although I did get into wrestling through the WWF, with the Rock 'n Wrestling era, as a kid I started gravitating toward competitors more as soon as I discovered them. The Crockett shows on TBS, and seeing Houston Wrestling on channel 39, and UWF, WCCW, and other random Southern promotions. It didn't take long to notice that these other promotions had an edge to them that WWF lacked. E.g., I liked Demolition in WWF, but I was always well aware that they were WWF's takeoff on the Road Warriors, and whereas the Road Warriors looked like total badasses and had Iron Man as their theme music, Demolition had glittery makeup and bedazzled ring gear. And of course the Road Warriors eventually did sign with WWF...and they instantly became far more uncool than they ever were before. I loved Hacksaw Duggan everywhere he wrestled, until he went to WWF and became Hogan's idiotic li'l buddy (which they always did to top guys from other territories). WWF/WWE has always had this effect, where they take an act that was interesting and cool and sort of Hollywood-ize it, make it mainstream and cartoony and they were increasingly pushing more ridiculous Saturday Morning Cartoon style characters. And then what sucked was that because they were overwhelming everyone else, the competition started trying to rip them off, so WCW got increasingly insipid to compete but they sucked at it even worse than WWF. So that lead to my first "can't watch anymore" period, until some college friends got me back into it with the NWO and Austin. Getting access to streaming services around 2010 or so was a godsend because it let me see Japanese stuff that I'd only heard about and it was actually every bit as good as the tape traders said. TL;DR: I've NEVER preferred WWE and will always favor alternatives provided they put on a show I enjoy.

[@BigmanDogs]

Nexus/NXT alongside Jeff Hardy leaving after the Punk feud was the initial thing that made me a smart fan. It made me look into wrestling news and forums. I enjoyed as a kid, because I feel like they really did dumb down everything so that kids could understand the storylines. I was super invested in the Nexus storyline as I unironically enjoyed the terrible NXT game show. Bryan returning at Summerslam was a massive moment because they actually did, from my perspective, put him over super hard as an underdog babyface during the NXT game show. But I have to say, even I was able to understand that Cena jobbing out the Nexus was a bad idea. It was the final straw that made me a Cena hater, though I was also right around the age where I was realizing that Cena was corny and wanted to adopt the positions that the adult fans held.

[@scottyboi3759]

I was a WWE fan during the attude era and only watched WWE. Until I think they pushed Cena ? It was just annoying the Nexus thing was the last straw for me and didn't watch WWE for years. . We had a TV Channel on sky called the wrestling channel they showed wrestling shows and matches from ROH, CZW, NOAH. Shoot interviews with forma wrestlers. a few UK indy shows. And TNA and I watched TNA over WWE I would check in with WWE at times but nothing would interest me. Or make me watch a full RAW episode.

[@groxexghostlawyer2558]

I remember watching that Raw as a CHILD. Never watched a PPV until Wrestlemania 27 (God Kill me) I remember when the Nexus angle on TV and going, Holy shit, this is amazing. And then Summerslam happened and it killed any interest I had the Nexus. Because they were FUCKING LOOSERS. At the time i thought, wow, those guys are loosers, i should pay attention to them. Now I think, Wow, those guys were buried, I feel sorry for them. and thus began the long road to where I'm at now. Where i don't watch WWE unless its clips and watch Japanese pro-wrestling, and AEW. What good time.

[@TophDaGreat]

Wade Barrett said they were supposed to go over but plans changed the day of. When he confronted Vince about it the response he got was "the fans need to go home happy". However, if you look at the main event of summerslam the following years, you'll see a pattern of heels going over. Vince didn't care about the fans going home happy then 🤣So either Vince is a liar or Cena played politics or both. Either way 2010 was the drizzling shits. I was a TNA guy and that was a rough year too for them. I nearly quit back then.

[@rassslinRant]

You wrote that really fast. Did you watch this video? lmao!

[@TophDaGreat]

@@rassslinRant watching it now lol. Actually believe it or not I had a conversation with a friend about this exact topic yesterday so I just copy and pasted it to save time 🤣

[@rassslinRant]

Haha, nice!

[@primusvsunicron1]

honestly I think it actually started when Austin and Rock stop wrestling full time

[@drevandamva]

You nailed it imo great observation

[@reeseangle9621]

Cena killed WWE, 2008-19 was terrible

[@hawklindbergh]

That’s because you don’t know what good wrestling is. Cena is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.

[@danterose6673]

I hate the, "what you did before WWE doesn't matter", mindset. It's one of the things I dislike about WWE.

[@vladboch]

I started watching wrestling just around that time on Eurosport, where they would run recaps of weekly TV and after that there was a show Vintage collection with Mean Jean Okerland as a host. It's probably thanks to this format I realised very early that WWE wasn't always the only game in town and there were some cool things, that happened in the past and which the current product just can not replicate. I have seen Bryan wrestle and he instantly became my favourite from this NXT class and I didn't appreciate how he was treated by Michael Cole. I am glad he overcame it. In 2012 I fell off of the product a little bit after Summerslam, I was fed up by Cena constantly being a main character at thhis point, but returned back in January 2013 when The Rock came back for a program with CM Punk. The Shield was young and hot, so I quickly caught up on everything I missed and stuck with the product throughout all the good and the bad. In mid 2010-s I started watching some of the other wrestling shows due to the big hype, they got online. I will never forget Wrestle Kingdom 10 where I saw probably the most amazing match at that point between Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Syles. So disappointed by how their feud turned out in the E.

[@VisualizeInside-mt2li]

Why did I remember Nexus Daniel Bryan choking Justin Roberts with some type of wire from a camera or monitor instead? I'm having some Mandela Effect typse ish going on lol

[@ryutsubohachi5615]

I started to only watch old stuff even when I found out about New Japan Pro Wrestling I mostly watch the old stuff until 2011 when I gave New Japan Dominion a Watch I started following Wrestling again I thought it got bad around 2007 for WWE

[@madddoggnogood1491]

Ive been watching wwe since 1990. I grew up watching wcw more than wwe but i grew to love both. When i stated getting into dirt sheet culture and all the inner workings around 2011 thats when my perception of all wrestling changed. I started noticing things like booking practices. And it changed my perception of everything i watched b4. But even then i never hated wwe or any company. I hate the people in charge. And with wwe i grew to hate vince McMahon around 2019-2020. I forgave him for not pushing Danielson when he should've and even when he did win he was dragged kicking and screaming , i forgave him for over pushing cena and Reigns and lesnar at the expense of others. But 2 things around 2019-2020 made me hate vince McMahon as a fan 1. How Kofis wwe Championship reign ended 2. Goldberg beating the fiend In my eyes... if those two booking decisions could be crimes vince would be charged with capital murder. And whats worse i cant tell who mores to blame vince, lesnar or goldberg. Two of the all time disgraceful booking decisions in wrestling history! And it was at this time aew dynamite was debuting and i completely gave up on wwe until Reigns returned at summerslam 2020

[@PokemonTrainerDavid93]

After 06 wwe is wack. Nexus and Wyatt losing to cena was the final straw for me.

[@ryutsubohachi5615]

I started to lose interest in WWE around that time too ECW was brutal

[@demolitionworm]

I stopped watching and giving WWE money after I saw how they responded in 2018 to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. After that I could no longer support what I think is an evil company.That was the last straw for me. I do watch the product every once in awhile via my friends/family but it's never really been the same since unfortunately.

[@johnpittsii7524]

Thanks for the video

[@rriggs6547]

I don't hate WWE. They have done some stuff I liked throughout time. But honestly the last time I truly was invested in WWE was with Savage and Hogan and with Savage and Steamboat. I really didn't care about Austin, even when he was in WCW. And I thought the Rock was an obnoxious immature kid who used disgusting humor to get over. I didn't dislike the Undertaker, but he didn't hold the same appeal to me as he did for many others. I loved the cruiserweight style that we saw in WCW. I liked a lot of the territories that no longer existed. I was interested a group of wrestlers that came over from WCW which included Jericho, Eddie, Benoit, Malenko, Helms, and others. Once they started to no longer be in WWE I really lost interest. I think I still had RAW on until it 2014. Though I did watch TNA weekly for years. I will say, when Cena went over Nexus, that really ticked me off. I lost a ton of interest.

[@memuno6281]

You sound like my old boss I used to talk wrestling about. He was a big 70’s and 80s WCW (not a big WWWF fan). After WCW feel, he didn’t care about WWE. I believe he was an 2007-08 Randy Orton fan tho. AEW is his company he loves and follows because he was never and WWF from the start.

[@rassslinRant]

This is something I think people who wish AEW and New Japan etc. etc. would just "go away" or think fans are weird for watching them don't get. Every time one of these companies fall, a big chunk (if not most) of the fans of those companies do not convert over to WWE. They just stop watching. The community shrinks with every closed door. We should hope all of them succeed in however they measure and need success.

[@rriggs6547]

@@memuno6281 Sounds similar to me. I did like the Orton Punting McMahons period. That really was the only Orton period I liked.

[@rriggs6547]

@@rassslinRant I agree. I may not be a big fan of the Fed, but the better WWE does, the better it is for the entire industry. The same with NJPW, AEW, Stardom, Noah, and everyone else.

[@memuno6281]

I believe the 2010’s era will be appreciated pretty well when 20 years pass. It’s like the current popular “old school rap” is the mid 2000’s. 2000’s party’s are very popular and that includes the artist that were not liked in that time. So going back to my point, the younger gen still in preschool and elementary school will see this like there “when wrestling was still good”. Plus, the metrics like ratings and star power will be the standard.

[@rassslinRant]

That's kind of like saying people who don't know any better will think better of it in the future. *shrug* Maybe but I don't think many who saw it at as a teen or older at the time will have fond memories of that era outside of Shawn v. Taker, the streak, and Rock v. Cena. Just my opinion though.

[@memuno6281]

@@rassslinRant most of the the WWE 2010’s sucked because Super Cena snd Vince’s mixed bag booking. I personally got uninterested because I got bored to Cena and my parents cut the cable so I wasn’t able to see Smackdown anymore. Plus WWE was still in the PPV model so good luck trying to watch the PPV as a teenager. I mostly remember playing the video games to see who was still in the company. Revionist history happens sometimes. People like Cena and Batista will seen as veteran even though they were not the great in ring wrestlers. Nextus storyline might be a “that how they started in WWE and look at them now” level. I believe the older generation will see the good, the bad and ugly of the early 2010’s (Vince’s last average years in WWE) with more positive eyes. I don’t but these children still in school that will get introduced to WWE will go back to see the “old school wrestling” of the of the 2010’s and see how it used to be.

[@rassslinRant]

@@memuno6281 as a fan of history, including wrestling history, I do like looking back on things like this though. It shows often WHY stuff happened. Ex. if the 2010s WWE wasn't so bad, would people have started paying more attention to New Japan, Ring of Honor, Lucha Underground etc.? Would we even have gotten AEW? Same goes with what happened to the territories that lead to the Monday Night War.

[@memuno6281]

@@rassslinRant if WWE main roster was still consistent in the 2010’s we would never see a NXT B&G thrive. I believe LU would still be around but not as popular as it was now. I believe New Japan would never try their expansion era. I can see a world where the elite stayed in Japan. I believe ROH would still be around because NXT B&G would not get the respect it has now.

[@reeseangle9621]

Nah the 2010s sucked so much

[@Cedrick_2005]

I've barely watched WWE since 09. I got back into it seeing the Nexus angle and of course super Cena had to ruin that just like everything else. What they did to Sting and then Goldberg did it for me. Sting losing to HHH at WM on his debut just for Vince to get one more over WCW was it I've hated WWE ever since and don't know if I can ever religiously follow the product. Tried to look at it in recent months and still have a hard time getting back into it. Because how they've booked their shows for so long and how they did so many talents so dirty I just can't support the company like I did in the 90s and early 2000s.

[@greer504]

Definitely a low point. Some of the most boring shows I’ve ever seen. And the Guest Host Era might’ve been the worst wrestling television I’d ever seen.

[@tonitolic4524]

I don't hate WWE.I don't like it because it's boring.

[@heyslade64]

before wwe was wwe damn….

[@zomb60]

I will always dislike Cena. Even in Hollywood.😂😂

[@SYMShutYoMouth]

WWE was so garbage in the 2010s. Hot garbage. For me, WWE started sucking at the tail end of 2008. The RAW Guest Host era was the absolute worst. For over a decade, this company was god awful.