What killed business more: John Cena/Nexus or HHH/CM Punk?

[The Rick Jericho]

I want to isolate these two storylines. For two straight summers, the WWE had absolutely HOT storylines playing out.

In 2010, we had all the guys from NXT come back to WWE TV as the Nexus. They were hot, they were over with the crowd and the shirts were selling like hotcakes. Then Summerslam came along and Cena basically killed all their heat by winning the match. History has not looked back at this well at all.

Fast forward to the Summer of 2011 and WWE lucks into ANOTHER hot summer storyline. We have CM Punk, who almost leaves the company. He beats John Cena, CLEAN in the middle of the ring at Money in the Bank in his hometown of Chicago. All the fans had another glimmer of hope. This storyline was hot and some say even hotter than the Nexus storyline a year earlier. Then Triple H puts himself into the storyline. Nash costs him the title for no good reason. Triple H goes over CM Punk and then afterwards they are friends. This completely deflated The Summer of Punk and it was never the same again.

Comparing the two back to back summers. Which decision killed business more for the company? Which storyline, of the two had the biggest chance to change the company and send the in a new direction, only for a veteran to kill the story dead before it had a chance to take off?

[tirtefaa]

Neither killed business.

CM Punk wasn't the draw that WWE thought he'd be, simply since PPV buy rates did go down, so I guess Cena/Nexus wins by default.

[A Platypus Rave is Correct]

Wade was not ready at the time to be the main event... his matches with Cena were good... but his matches with Randy were god awful.

The rest of the Nexus had hteir weaknesses hid by multiman matches... but none of them were really ready for a big main angle either.

[Jindrak Mark]

Neither killed business. Hell in a Cell 2011 the following month got more PPV buys than Night of Champions and the year before Cena/Barrett post-Summerslam drew good numbers for Hell in a Cell and Survivor Series. Survivor Series especially was sold completely on the Cena/Barrett dynamic and even with one of the all-time worst big 4 cards it beat the previous years SS which was way more star-studded.

There are very few booking decisions you can point to and say they really hurt business. A lot of the time it's just us the IWC complaining but numbers not actually being affected. You just saw it recently with the reaction to Cody losing at Mania and then ratings staying the same or even better afterwards.

One of the ones you can easily prove hurt business is Austin turning heel in 2001. You can look at the numbers and see that business completely fell off a cliff immediately. Russo winning the world title too. WCW weren't exactly doing great even before that but that decision really drove them into the toilet. Making JBL the top heel on Smackdown is another one. Raw and Smackdown were pretty even in 2003 but once JBL took over Smackdown PPVs and ratings started getting crushed by Raw.

[CubsFan71]

I don’t think either of them outright killed the business. However Cena/Nexus did far more damage. Cena going over Barrett and Gabriel at SummerSlam killed nexus dead and they never really recovered from it. To make matters worse, Cena would constantly get one up on the Nexus at every turn. Even when he had to join them, he turned it into a joke. And top it all off, he literally hurried Wade Barrett underneath a bunch of chairs at a ppv match. Barrett never really recovered from that

[Loser troll. Please ban me]

Nexus and it isn't close. You had Cena bury 5 potential future stars for no benefit

[Celgress]

John Cena's defeat of the Nexus at Summerslam hurt the business more, IMHO.

[Chiral]

Nexus hurt more for me overall, but I think both were cases where they played it "safe" by their metrics and business probably stayed relatively the same for them while they left so much potential on the table they both could've been so much huger but that 'potentially so much bigger' is hard to quantify financially.

[Ben Wyatt]

The Summerslam ending was dumb, and I didn't love HHH beating Punk but neither "killed the business" by any stretch of the imagination

[Push R Truth]

Here is the future of the WWE! They are powerful and want to take over! This next generation of wrestlers are going to be great!
Nevermind, they got squashed. This generation is lame.

The whole thing felt very much like a grumpy ass boomer saying, "Listen kids, your generation sucks and will never be as good as us. Get outta here." and then the same old a-hole is complaining a year later "why there aren't any new stars? I know, it's the kid's fault!"

[ssdrivin]

Apr 20, 2023 5:58:27 GMT -5 Push R Truth said:

Here is the future of the WWE! They are powerful and want to take over! This next generation of wrestlers are going to be great!
Nevermind, they got squashed. This generation is lame.

The whole thing felt very much like a grumpy ass boomer saying, "Listen kids, your generation sucks and will never be as good as us. Get outta here." and then the same old a-hole is complaining a year later "why there aren't any new stars? I know, it's the kid's fault!"

If you're not prepared to grab that brass ring and prove your mettle, maybe you don't deserve it!

rewrites script to squash anybody and everybody who isn't already an established megastar

[Deleted]

There is no world in which team Nexus should have won that match.

That group was a heel faction built very specifically for super Cena to destroy and make the kids happy, plain and simple. What happens if the Nexus wins it? They go on for a too-long, heel dominated angle like the Authority? The very best thing that could have happened to that group was that they got away from the Nexus all went their separate directions afterward. Do we really want MORE of WWE's misery booking?

[Legion]

Apr 20, 2023 8:57:07 GMT -5 @wvguitar said:

There is no world in which team Nexus should have won that match.

That group was a heel faction built very specifically for super Cena to destroy and make the kids happy, plain and simple. What happens if the Nexus wins it? They go on for a too-long, heel dominated angle like the Authority? The very best thing that could have happened to that group was that they got away from the Nexus all went their separate directions afterward. Do we really want MORE of WWE's misery booking?

But the current misery booking, and even the Authroity misery booking, started long after that. Super Cena was absolutely for the kids and the sponsors and the families; it was an attempt to do the Hogan era over again to grab new eyes. It wasnt totally unsuccessful in that regard either, kids genuinely loved Cena.

But adults didnt and it led to people leaving, and even some kids can get tired of the hero always winning. Nexus could have pulled off a win to make the challenge for Cena to return and conquer them later that much more satisfying.

In short bursts, that's compelling storytelling, WWE just cant seem to get away from having to stick to a theme for years and years, rather than pivot story to story - in the main event anyway, they can be much better at that in the undercard.

[Kay Faban]

Neither, everything was fine after both.

[Some Baritone guy IS REDEEMED!]

Apr 19, 2023 19:58:59 GMT -5 tirtefaa said:

Neither killed business.

CM Punk wasn't the draw that WWE thought he'd be, simply since PPV buy rates did go down, so I guess Cena/Nexus wins by default.

But they only tried to build him as a draw for all of two months. That win over Tripe H could have really done a lot to help.

Instead he was the guy who won the belt and left, then came back won the belt back in controversial fashion, got jumped by Kevin Nash with a bad die job, immediately dropped the title, and then doing a job to Triple H. So he ends up being an anti-authority rebel, who gets slapped down the instant he actually challenges the establishment. Then a month later Punk is Triple H's buddy when he's trying to stay in power.

On one hand I think sticking with Punk more would have likely reduced in a bump in ratings if they'd taken the time to keep building on the momentum of Money in the Bank, but they just tried their damndest to make sure he lost relvance.

On the other hand CM Punk was able to recover from this: The Nexus wasn't. None of them were even close to staying relevant after this. But that being said, I don't think that Nexus had quite the possibility of being what Punk could have.

So they win the derailed push argument, but in terms of business, I'd say Punk takes it.

[tirtefaa]

Apr 20, 2023 9:50:34 GMT -5 Some Baritone guy IS REDEEMED! said:

But they only tried to build him as a draw for all of two months. That win over Tripe H could have really done a lot to help.

Instead he was the guy who won the belt and left, then came back won the belt back in controversial fashion, got jumped by Kevin Nash with a bad die job, immediately dropped the title, and then doing a job to Triple H. So he ends up being an anti-authority rebel, who gets slapped down the instant he actually challenges the establishment. Then a month later Punk is Triple H's buddy when he's trying to stay in power.

On one hand I think sticking with Punk more would have likely reduced in a bump in ratings if they'd taken the time to keep building on the momentum of Money in the Bank, but they just tried their damndest to make sure he lost relvance.

On the other hand CM Punk was able to recover from this: The Nexus wasn't. None of them were even close to staying relevant after this. But that being said, I don't think that Nexus had quite the possibility of being what Punk could have.

So they win the derailed push argument, but in terms of business, I'd say Punk takes it.

Punk flirted with the main event for years, feuding with some of the biggest names. It's not like he went from feuding with Kofi Kingston to John Cena in one night.

I'm not denying that Punk should have beaten Triple H, or that he would eventually become a lame character, but the intrigue over Punk prior to those events wasn't something that audiences were digging. I mean, if WWE was concerned that Punk wasn't drawing after years of being a World title contender or champion, while feuding with Orton, Undertaker, Jericho amongst others...how long would you hold out?

Again, not disagreeing that the storyline became terrible, but that wasn't the the question that was being asked. Punk losing to Triple H did nothing to affect business positively or negatively.

[A Platypus Rave is Correct]

Apr 20, 2023 8:57:07 GMT -5 @wvguitar said:

There is no world in which team Nexus should have won that match.

That group was a heel faction built very specifically for super Cena to destroy and make the kids happy, plain and simple. What happens if the Nexus wins it? They go on for a too-long, heel dominated angle like the Authority? The very best thing that could have happened to that group was that they got away from the Nexus all went their separate directions afterward. Do we really want MORE of WWE's misery booking?

It was also the first time the Nexus had any kind of set back in months.

And they were fine afterwards.

Wade hasn't even challenged for the title yet and they were still down to be ruthless abd dangerous due having numbers.

[BayleyTiffyCodyCenaJudyHopps]

Neither. They were both understandable choices and they didn’t shed enough fans afterwards for dissatisfaction to make a real impact on business.

[Friday Night SmackOwn]

Apr 20, 2023 9:20:51 GMT -5 Legion said:

Apr 20, 2023 8:57:07 GMT -5 @wvguitar said:

There is no world in which team Nexus should have won that match.

That group was a heel faction built very specifically for super Cena to destroy and make the kids happy, plain and simple. What happens if the Nexus wins it? They go on for a too-long, heel dominated angle like the Authority? The very best thing that could have happened to that group was that they got away from the Nexus all went their separate directions afterward. Do we really want MORE of WWE's misery booking?

But the current misery booking, and even the Authroity misery booking, started long after that. Super Cena was absolutely for the kids and the sponsors and the families; it was an attempt to do the Hogan era over again to grab new eyes. It wasnt totally unsuccessful in that regard either, kids genuinely loved Cena.

But adults didnt and it led to people leaving, and even some kids can get tired of the hero always winning. Nexus could have pulled off a win to make the challenge for Cena to return and conquer them later that much more satisfying.

In short bursts, that's compelling storytelling, WWE just cant seem to get away from having to stick to a theme for years and years, rather than pivot story to story - in the main event anyway, they can be much better at that in the undercard.

Nobody likes misery booking, but that doesn’t mean the villains should always lose.

[A Platypus Rave is Correct]

Apr 20, 2023 13:23:52 GMT -5 Friday Night SmackOwn said:

Apr 20, 2023 9:20:51 GMT -5 Legion said:

But the current misery booking, and even the Authroity misery booking, started long after that. Super Cena was absolutely for the kids and the sponsors and the families; it was an attempt to do the Hogan era over again to grab new eyes. It wasnt totally unsuccessful in that regard either, kids genuinely loved Cena.

But adults didnt and it led to people leaving, and even some kids can get tired of the hero always winning. Nexus could have pulled off a win to make the challenge for Cena to return and conquer them later that much more satisfying.

In short bursts, that's compelling storytelling, WWE just cant seem to get away from having to stick to a theme for years and years, rather than pivot story to story - in the main event anyway, they can be much better at that in the undercard.

Nobody likes misery booking, but that doesn’t mean the villains should always lose.

But the villains didn't always lose.

Summerslam was literally the first set back the Nexus had period since appearing months before

They got the better of Cena a number of times including beating him in a match.