During the summer of 2010, Nexus was the hottest thing in WWE. The group of NXT rookies banded together to destroy the ring and ringside on WWE Raw in one of the most talked-about WWE segments in years.
"That night, it was a lot of...confusion. We were nervous, but excited. We didn't want to hurt anyone, but they told us to go and demolish everything. 'Whoever is in your way, take them out.' And, we did. People were crying in the stands and throwing stuff at us. They were genuinely mad scared and upset. It was amazing. I had a Coke hit me in the back. We knew we had them," said Heath Slater on Busted Open Radio.
It all led to SummerSlam 2010 when Team Nexus battled Team WWE.
The stage was set for Nexus (Darren Young, David Otunga, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel, Michael Tarver, Skip Sheffield and Wade Barrett) to win and establish their dominance. And that was the plan on the day of. But something happened last minute.
"I wish we could have had our hands and our grip on it a little more because it died way too soon. And we all know this. SummerSlam, we should have taken over. Period. We should have won. As soon as [we lost], we shifted from fourth to second gear in a matter of one night. It was like, 'Damn, we worked this hard for this to happen? We couldn't wait until Mania so you could have a mega group and then destroy us?' It should not have ended at SummerSlam," he said. "I knew we were going over. Next thing I knew, we weren't. I'm sure it was one of those things that people were walking in and out of there and changing Vince's mind and all that fun stuff. None of us knew. We were winning, and then a couple of matches before, we weren't. I still don't know the whole story. And you're never going to know the whole story. You can never get the right answer, just the 'around the bush' answer."
Following SummerSlam 2010, Nexus never regained the momentum they had after their Raw debut. By the end of the year, John Cena had buried leader Wade Barrett under steel chairs and the group was under new management to start 2011.
If you use any of the quotes above, please give a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.