Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Will the Nexus Angle End at SummerSlam?

Edge, meet the Nexus. Hopefully, they'll be around when you, Cena and your team are done with them at SummerSlam


For as well-booked and interesting as I think this whole Nexus angle, I'm starting to hear rumblings around the Internet about how the angle is starting to get boring. While I would disagree with that assessment and think it's only really starting to unfold now that the individual members are wrestling matches instead of banding together in handicap matches or battle royales, there is some merit to those arguments. For that crowd, the big Nexus vs. Team Cena match provides a welcome opportunity for this angle to hit the big booking chart in the sky.

I certainly hope that's not the case. For one, the Nexus guys are just starting to get legs under them, and I think there's a lot of mileage for a permanent stable to come out of this, even if it does lose a few members. For one, Justin Gabriel defecting to the babyface side makes a lot of sense because the kid just looks like a natural face. Maybe one of the other guys (looking at you Heath Slater or Darren Young) gets future endeavored. I could also see David Otunga breaking off from the stable to prove he's more than just a background player, going onto Smackdown and further developing his heel character there. Who knows, but I'll be very disappointed if this time next year, the Nexus stable is a distant memory.

Still, a lot needs to be done to get them there, and SummerSlam is a vital point. If the angle were to continue, the Nexus would have to win. There are no doubts there, as them losing would reinforce that they need to have a numbers advantage to be viable. That's not going to help any of them. Even if they win dirty, they can at least prove that they're formidable enough to compete when the sides are even. Then after that, there would need to be more care into making the storyline mean something other than just having an excuse to parade guys out from the back to have widespread mayhem to close every show. This is where I start to see merit in the "Nexus is boring" arguments.

As well as they've booked it so far, they have taken a long time to get from "rogue stable that kicks the crap out of everyone" to "wrestling matches in the ring". For someone like me, a guy who likes a story to unfold week in and week out, the pacing has been awfully nice and a welcome surprise. However, one of the unintended circumstances of weekly live television and the Attitude era is that crowds have become more impatient than they were in the pre-RAW days. Therefore, I see where the detractors are getting antsy.

However, this puts the WWE bookers into a situation where they have to choose between forging ahead and continuing this epic slow burn or into going back to the paradigm of instant gratification and blowing the entire thing off at SummerSlam with less than two months of build behind it. Now, while I want them to continue the angle, I can see a situation in a few months where I wish they had just ended it at SummerSlam with a hard-fought, non-squashy type victory over the Nexus that puts the new guys over enough that at least Barrett and possibly a few other guys (perhaps a tag team of Michael Tarver and Skip Sheffield?) have long-term viability, and that's if the bookers continue on with the angle, but fall back to the old model of overkill booking with no touch that was their MO for most of last year.

If we continue to see the Nexus just do run ins and beat the crap out of everyone followed by a token resistance from the RAW superstars the next week with the cycle on repeat, then this is going to get extremely stale extremely fast. If they don't continue to execute the angle with care and nuance, it'll turn into the Randy Orton/Triple H or the Orton/Cena feuds from last year all over again, where they meet at consecutive PPVs with nothing more than just lazy token angle advancement between each PPV match.

Then again, your outlook on how this angle will progress or should progress, if at all, after SummerSlam will depend on how much trust you have in the WWE's creative minds. If you have faith in them, you're going to want them to continue on. If you don't, then you want them to end it now. Surprisingly, given how much vitriol I've directed at the offices in Stamford, I kinda have faith in them with this angle because it's been booked so well so far. Plus, there are aces in the hole that they have yet to play, like:

- Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson. Assuming that he's a lock to return after his cool-down exile in the indies is over, he's got massive amounts of heat with the Nexus for shoving him aside, massive amounts of unresolved heat with Michael Cole and some neat storyline potential with John Cena.

- The Undertaker and expanding the angle to Smackdown. The two main potential culprits for Undertaker's persistent vegetative state remain The Nexus and Kane himself. Given that a revelation of Kane would be a little disappointing, I'm rooting for it to be the Nexus. Would it spread them thin? Yeah, it would. Would it give the WWE an opportunity to spice up Bragging Rights this year and give them a whole other year to recharge the Smackdown vs. RAW match for next year? Oh fuck yeah. I think the benefits outweigh the risks here.

- An established WWE name turning heel and defecting to the Nexus. As long as that name doesn't become the Steve Austin to the Nexus' WCW/ECW Alliance, it would be a smart move and one that could keep the sparks flying on the angle for months to come.

- The mystery RAW GM. Duh.

Given that the ratings for RAW have been trending slightly up since this angle's beginning, I don't think we're going to see it end at SummerSlam. It seems like a ratings grabber that's starting to draw them some money. However, there's always that chance, and there's always that underlying cynicism that the WWE doesn't have what it takes to end the Nexus' reign of terror better than they ended the WCW Invasion or better than WCW ended, or in a way, never really ended the nWo angle.

So while I'm guardedly optimistic, there's always that chance. Always that chance, that nagging chance that not only would ending the angle at SummerSlam be the best move, but that it will definitely be that move.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!