Everybody had those damn Nexus shirts...dudes acting like it was two bit stable...no...they kept losing to Cena in the end and was WAY, WAY more over than Sheild. Punk at his hottest barely matched their buzz....
Nexus didn't make any mainstream waves though. Non wrestling fans/sites weren't talking about them except for the time
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got fired...
I wasn't really following WWE during the whole Nexus storyline, so while I agree that most of them are bums NOW, are we speaking with the benefit of hindsight or did people actually think at the time these guys wouldn't go on to do much outside of that?
More like foresight. It was obvious that it was supposed to be used to push Barrett. Like Liggins said, he's been proven to be a very boring fella (no sheam) so it wasn't MUCH of a loss.
As for the thread topic, there's only 2 options that can compete Ryder and HHH/Nash/Punk...
In Ryder's case, HE DID ALL THE fukkING WORK. All they had to do was give him a quick segment weekly, give him a nice little win streak and let him cook. He wasn't going to replace Cena, but he was over and all they had to do was milk it. Dude was selling merchandise and getting huge reactions for a short second.
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@ not capitalizing on that. You push a guy like Miz for years hoping he will get some crowd reaction like Ryder was getting.
In Punk's case, you had the next Austin 3:16 moment right there on the stage. No, he wasn't going to be the next Austin (once in a lifetime) but he had a lane to do something major. All they had to do was let it marinate and not fukk it up. Not only could this have made for some good TV and a great summer, but they fukked off the opportunity to get a legitimate replacement for Cena. I know it's cliche, but Cena could have turned heel and had a fresh start. It truly could have been the start of a new era. Instead, we got Kevin fukking Nash (who wasn't that great 10 years ago) and HHH (the guy who is MUCH better behind the scenes than he is in front of the camera at this stage in his career) getting put in the mix. The worst part is that Nash/HHH could have easily been done without Punk involved.
My heart wants to say Ryder because they used his whole movement to shyt on him. They essentially proved that you can't go out and get yourself over and expect to get rewarded. On the other hand, my mind says Punk because it's the only option that would have gotten away from the :smugcena: era while taking the company in a new direction...