Nexus > DX & Evolution?

Xinkai

As we've seen in recent weeks on Raw, one group of new rookie superstars has taken us all by surprise, from ripping up the ringside area, to helping our lad Sheamus retain the belt. Hell these guys go so far they get fired

This group is The Nexus, and i don't know about you guys, but i know i'm not watching Raw for Sheamus anymore, i tune in to watch it for Nexus. These guys especially Wade Barrett seem too good to be fresh to the WWE.

Some people are saying that they are 'Evolution done right' or 'What DX Wanted to be'.

What are your thoughts?

Nexus > DX?

El_Drago

The current Nexus would be SCREWED if it wasn't for Wade Barrett. Watching these guys wrestle is painful and it's no wonder that bar Barrett, none of them have had a singles match nor promos that have lasted more than a few seconds since the group's formation. Having said that, WWE have done reasonably well to mask their weaknesses and I've enjoyed tuning into RAW to see the storyline unraveling.

Pentecost

Agreed Barrett is carrying them, not sure how long it can play out that way with 7 of them involved and 6 of them doing nothing except one move in the midst of a beat down. It'll get old pretty quick.

Rjd2

Slater and Gabriel are decent enough workers. Wade is awesome when he speaks but I have never been blown away by his ring work. He could turn into a good worker but at this moment from a wrestling viewpoint is on the same level of Slater and Gabriel. Skip is the best of the rest obviously. Tarver is mediocre but can be carried, while Otunga is bloody awful.

I haven't watched that much of Young so it wouldn't be fair to make any judgement on him really.

Mr.Nice Guy

People forget Evolution initially were very raw too. Half of that group were green, inexperienced workers with average enough mic skills. Flair's mic skills and the rub he offered, and Triple H's in-ring efforts and mic work helped take Orton and Batista to the next level.

Nexus are different in that there is no guy to do the Flair/Hunter role. You could say Barrett is carrying them, and from a mic skills point of view he is, but not really in-ring wise. Danielson might have managed it to an extent but at the moment they are all very raw. Because of that I wouldn't compare them to D-X or Evolution.

I'd say a fairer comparison, and I'm being serious here, would be with the Spirit Squad. Why? Because both groups were full of inexperienced wrestlers who were trying to get over with the audience week by week. Where Nexus and the Spirit Squad differ is that the WWE have not sought to make them a joke comedy group who get buried most weeks, but rather they're presented as a serious group who have managed to take out the top talents. Maybe it's because the company in 2010 realises they need new stars and can't rely on the old guard forever.

If the angle continues to be supported then I reckon two or three could make it and that would be a good return imo. Barrett I think is going to be a star as his in-ring work will improve and he already has mic skills that the likes of Morrison would envy. I reckon Gabriel could be a decent babyface due to his style and the fact he has a good look. I could see him at around Kofi Kingston level but would be sceptical if he'd go beyond that. Tarver and Skip to me have a good look that the company will like but I can't see them making it long-term. I'm not sure there's a lot beneath the surface. Young is tough to figure out as he has a good look but needs a lot of work still. Otunga can talk well but needs to massively improve in the ring. My outside bet to make it would be Slater. He has a distinct look, can talk well and can wrestle better than most of them. I recall when NXT first started people hated him probably the most. I first figured he was going to be a heel based on that goofy Bill and Ted style persona he had going on and I can see him being a decent heel with that, a bit like the way Christian was when he split with Edge, which is perhaps why they paired the two together in the first place.

Overall I think people should refrain from judging them too harshly as they are a work in progress and they will make mistakes along the way. I'm just thankful that new, young guys are getting a push and hopefully it will continue.

Balasubbie

Tarver has presence and now, with his new rape face, a character.

Angron

I'm still thinking DX or Evolution > Nexus, mostly for the reasons listed here. Nexus needs to be around a while longer, get a bit more polished and help develop a bit more of a persona for each of the characters (which I suppose is hard to do in a group that big).

GTR63

Michael Tarver is awful,that punch he hit Cena with at Fatal 4 Way was worse than anything Cena ever threw.

I like Heath Slater,he at least stands out from the crowd of Tanned wwe prototypes.

David Otunga is Pea Green, he's dangerous in the ring & only on tv cause of his Mrs.

Skip Sheffield is a Wellness Policy failure waiting to happen, he's alive with Juice.

Justin Gabriel has zero charisma but seems to be able to handle himself in the ring, pity his size will work against him in wwe.

Darren Young just seems to blend into the Crowd thats hardly a asset.

Wade Barrett is very Solid on the Mic but i'm not thrilled with his in ring work,his signature just looks clumsy.

Writing that just shows with the exception of Barrett the rest seem to be FAR stronger as a unit than individuals.

As far as them being better than DX or Evolution you've to take into Context that DX was cool in the 90's not when 40+ year old HHH & Hbk pretended they're 19.
Evolution helped wwe push future wwe style main eventers Batista & Orton so job done there.

I doubt WWE would of ever pushed Bryan Danielson strong enough after insulting him & burying him for weeks who has ever gotten that & came out stronger,yeah he beat Miz but so did Bret Hart via tapout.

JP Liz V1

None of them look good in the ring imo I think they seemed better on the Nxt show than they are on Raw

DX and Evolution were way better than Nexus

SlickRic

i don't believe this comparison is even being made in all honesty.

DX>>>>Evolution>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Nexus.

they've done f*ck all so far in the grand scheme of things.

Penn

Have to agree, can't see how this comparison is being made, or how anyone could think Nexus have come close to DX and Evolution. DX, even when it was the DX Army version, all the members could work and hold their own. Evolution, even though Orton and Batista were relatively new and inexperienced, you could tell they could be great, and were rising stars.

Nexus, half the members are there by association. Only part of Nexus because they were on NXT. Half of them are going nowhere and forcing the others to pick up the slack. Only Barrett seems like a future main eventer, with Slater and Sheffield probably staying mid card.

Gerard.C

DX and Evolution both had established stars leading them, Nexus is 7 basically unknowns and they are doing some job so far in fairness to them. It's too early to be comparing them to the likes of DX, but they have made some impact so far and I think that they are the best thing in wrestling right now

Machismo Fan

What I don't get is why these guys aren't wrestling long, competitive matches on every house show they can. The only way these guys are going to improve is by getting in the ring with top talent and learning from them but that isn't happening. They aren't being given any chance to improve.

JP Liz V1

Machismo Fan wrote: »

What I don't get is why these guys aren't wrestling long, competitive matches on every house show they can. The only way these guys are going to improve is by getting in the ring with top talent and learning from them but that isn't happening. They aren't being given any chance to improve.

Yes I agree its time they had some singles matches

jaykhunter

The idea that a two-month old faction full of nobodies with a handful of mediocre matches under their belt are being compared to two of the biggest factions in American wrestling over the last 20 years is nonsensical. The Nexus are doing just fine, but they've done nothing compared to DX or Evolution, talent, promo, in-ring or championship -wise. ALL of Nexus cannot carry a midcard match (Barrett's still learning the ropes but is, in general, untested) and are too 'new' to draw any kind of money, unlike DX and Evolution.

If I were a betting man I'd say the person who thinks Nexus is better or comes close to DX or Evolution, hasn't been watching wrestling very long, or knows nothing of DX and Evolution.

Losing DX (Shawn and Hunter) in 97-98 or losing Evolution (HHH, Orton, Batista, Flair) in 2003-4 would've been extremely detrimental to the company, which is not the case with Nexus.

gimmick

Are Evolotion seen as a great faction? If so, why? They seemed very "by the way" to me. Could not hold a candle to the real DX or NWO or the Nation or whoever.

That said, it made 2 main eventers in Orton and Batista, but I never actually found them in the least bit interesting.

Butch Cassidy

People forget that DX weren't very good at all. Rose tinted glasses tbh.

The first d-Generation-X was just antics filled RAW is War sketches and aside from Michaels' WrestleMania XIV match didn't really produce many matches worth talking about again - New Age Outlaws weren't actually in DX for the No Way Out in Texas non-sanctioned match and the Royal Rumble casket match wasn't great.


I can't remember any Billy Gunn, Road God or Xpac matches that were really good and standout.

DX was a crap overrated stable that started out as a sketch in 1997 and was dragged out into a nostalgic tag team that was a glorified advertisement for merchandise.

If Nexus gets guys over and produces stellar matches then yeah it'll be better than DX. Evolution produced the best matches out of the three I think if you're talking about each individual member.

flahavaj

gimmick wrote: »

Are Evolotion seen as a great faction? If so, why? They seemed very "by the way" to me. Could not hold a candle to the real DX or NWO or the Nation or whoever.

That said, it made 2 main eventers in Orton and Batista, but I never actually found them in the least bit interesting.

Poor man's Horsemen tbh.

Butch Cassidy

gimmick wrote: »

Are Evolotion seen as a great faction? If so, why? They seemed very "by the way" to me. Could not hold a candle to the real DX or NWO or the Nation or whoever.

That said, it made 2 main eventers in Orton and Batista, but I never actually found them in the least bit interesting.

That's the difference. Evolution got two guys over and after that they had good matches. DX got noone over - Trips was helped get over by turning heel, fueding with The Rock in 99 and beating the crap out of Mankind/Cactus Jack. His 97 fued with Mankind helped him shake off his knaff gimmick as well. I think DX did more harm to him than anything as he did little worth mentioning in 98 aside from the ladder match.


For what it's worth the Four Horsemen were the best stable/faction imo

Rjd2

gimmick wrote: »

Are Evolotion seen as a great faction? If so, why? They seemed very "by the way" to me. Could not hold a candle to the real DX or NWO or the Nation or whoever.

That said, it made 2 main eventers in Orton and Batista, but I never actually found them in the least bit interesting.

I was going to comment on this but someone the other day commented on the relevance of Evolution and Nexus much better than I ever could. Some poor grammar though!

I don't think being part of Evolution would have made a difference for Orton, far as the Foley feud goes. Foley if he was still healthy as he was in 2004, could come and have the same feud with Drew or Barrett and it would get over, being part of Evolution didn't really make Orton, the feud with Foley made him. Before then he was a blackhole of charisma who could never really keep heat as a prop on Evolution.

Batista didn't really become important until Triple H started treating him like a moron and he outsmarted him at every turn, being part of Evolution probably helped him out a little, but **** Trips could have basically used him like HBK used Diesel and Batista would have gotten over the same.

The group as a whole was never on a level of a Horsemen, DX [Pre-2005], NWO etc. They were by large Triple H's props and didn't really get over because they were part of Evolution, Orton got over because he feuded with Foley and had all that crushed by Triple H. Batista got over, because Triple H had to do something after burying Orton and Batista [mostly because he never was nothing more than a job guy for guys trying to get at Trips]-was still relatively a nobody until Trips put the battery in his back.

I seriously don't believe Evolution did anything of note until they went ahead and start breaking them up from August 2004-October 2005.

As a unit they were really just a glorified tribute to the Horsemen without the charisma, the unity, camaraderie, or any sense of a team of guys who truly thought they were the best in the world. They didn't really revolutionize the business or set any trends, they just basically followed Trips around for 2 -3 years until he finally got tired of them one by one.

Nexus hasn't really set any trends either, but at least their motivation as a unit is somewhat clear and makes sense from a storyline stand point. A couple of rookies made a path before a competition, where whoever won would help the others get in to, and through all the bull**** they were put through by WWE managment and "The Pros", became a violent group of rebels, because they feel they were treated like trash and again, they had made a path to stick together no matter what happened. Their motivation has always been clear from day one.

The same could be said for The Horsemen, NWO, DX [1998, 2000 Helmsely/McMahom regime, Hunter/Shawn 1997], The Nation, The Hart Foundation, The Ministry, The Corporation etc. All those cliques had some kind of meaning.

Trips promo introducing the name "Evolution" and explaining the concept made sense, but they never really touched on any of that until the guys were breaking up. The group itself should have turned on Hunter after Orton won the title from Benoit, THAT would have mad the name Evolution mean something, not to mention how over Orton had gotten after Foley and Benoit did masterful jobs getting over. However the whole lay out of the group was pretty much Trips hanging out with a bunch of Young Boys" and his favorite wrestler as a glorified manager. Sure they all held the belts at once, but can anybody say that really amounted to anything but a bunch of guys holding meaningless belts outside of The Big Gold Belt? Did anybody really take Batista/Flair seriously as tag champs? Orton as IC Champion had a brilliant feud with Foley, which all he had to do was stand there and look cocky, while Foley did his thing.

Other then breaking up, I don't see Evolution having an Impact at all.

flahavaj

The thing I like about Nexus is that they're the first group in a long time that really seems to be about the group as awhole and its unity being its strength rather than any particular individuals. They're doing a good job of highlighting this by emphasising the cracks that the egos in Cena's team are causing.

KrazeeEyezKilla

I haven't seen much of the Nexus so far but they do look like a group that have a proper reason for existing and they also look strong as well.

The idea for Evolution was great but they were a joke when they were first formed in late 2002 when Raw was an extended HHH **** session. When they reformed after injury in mid-2003 they were a lot better. When they stuck to their roles of Main Eventer/Mid Carder/Manager/Enforcer it worked well. Having Flair and Batista as a tag-team was pointless. They tried to push Orton for too quickly. He should have fueded with Shelton Benjamin and kept the I-C Title until at least Summerslam. He could have won the World Title off Benoit at Taboo Tuesday in October and then be constantly undermined by the rest of the group. Then the title became vacant leading to the Elimination Chamber. By that point Batistas surge in popularity would have been obvious and made it easier to find a way of not making Orton look like a loser.

ricero

I loved the ministry although it was basically the undertaker and a load of jobbers they were great to watch and had so many memorable moment . By the way wats dis new ecw group in tna all about I don't watch tna much really but noticed it the other week is it a copy of the invasion storyline ????

gimmick

^ You have just answered your own question there really. Its just yet another ECW rehash for Tommy Dreamer to get emotional over.

Impact Spoiler

Its no longer a group though as members have clashed.

JP Liz V1

Kinda OT but Flair's new Evolution Part II group called "Fortune" in TNA consists of Styles, Kaz and Beer Money so far and who from that group needs a push only Kaz me thinks :rolleyes:

It will be interesting to see how long WWE are going to keep Nexus as a group and what will happen them after SS which btw I think they will win their match

jaykhunter

From everyone's favourite source of info, wikipedia

The original Horsemen (1986–1989)
* Heels (1986–1987): Ric Flair, Ole Anderson, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Baby Doll (valet), James J. Dillon (manager)
* Heels (1987): Ric Flair, Lex Luger, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Dark Journey (valet), James J. Dillon (manager)
o Associated members: War Machine
* Heels (1988): Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Barry Windham, James J. Dillon (manager)
* Heels (1988–1989): Ric Flair, Barry Windham, James J. Dillon (manager)
o Associated members: Kendall Windham, Butch Reed


Yamazaki Corporation (1989)
* Ric Flair, Barry Windham, Kendall Windham, Butch Reed, Hiro Matsuda (manager)
* Ric Flair, Michael Hayes, Kendall Windham, Butch Reed, Hiro Matsuda (manager)


Reformation (1989–1991)
* Faces (1989–1990): Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Ole Anderson, Sting
* Heels (1990–1991): Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Barry Windham, Sid Vicious, Woman (valet), Ole Anderson (manager)


Horsemen reunion (1993)
* Faces (1993): Ric Flair, Ole Anderson (only one night), Arn Anderson, Paul Roma, Fifi (valet)


Reformation and feud with the nWo (1995–1997)
* Heels (1995–1996): Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Brian Pillman, Chris Benoit, Woman (valet), Miss Elizabeth (valet), Bobby Heenan (manager; only for one night)
* Heels (1996): Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Chris Benoit, Woman (valet), Steve McMichael, Debra McMichael (valet), Miss Elizabeth (valet)
* Faces (1996–1997): Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Chris Benoit, Woman (valet), Steve McMichael, Debra McMichael (valet)
o Associated members: Jeff Jarrett
* Faces (1997): Ric Flair, Curt Hennig, Chris Benoit, Steve McMichael


Final incarnations (1998–1999)
* Faces (1998–1999): Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Steve McMichael, Arn Anderson (manager)
o Associated members: James J. Dillon
* Heels (1999): Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Arn Anderson (manager), Charles Robinson (referee), Double D (valet)
o Associated members: David Flair and Samantha/Torrie (valet)

=======

Jaysus, laid out like that it sounds like the Horsemen's name was bitchslapped, reused and trodden on more times than a comparison between WCW & TNA!

jaykhunter

Butch Cassidy wrote: »

People forget that DX weren't very good at all. Rose tinted glasses tbh.

The first d-Generation-X was just antics filled RAW is War sketches and aside from Michaels' WrestleMania XIV match didn't really produce many matches worth talking about again - New Age Outlaws weren't actually in DX for the No Way Out in Texas non-sanctioned match and the Royal Rumble casket match wasn't great.

Their 'antics' were the blueprints for the next 4 years of WWF; it's boom period and the reason why most of us still watch wrestling (we were hooked from then on).

DX were short-lived but in that time we had the first ever HiaC, Montreal Screwjob, their own PPV, and the Mike Tyson deal. Pretty big landmarks (except for the ppv lol)

Wrestling in general during the late 90s wasn't great. It wasn't until Benoit/Jericho etc etc joined that the actual in-ring stuff got better. That said, HHH and HBK would usually be in the best matches in-ring wise on the card.

I can't remember any Billy Gunn, Road God or Xpac matches that were really good and standout.

Don't care for them, but they were really over at the time. I'll say again that match quality means nothing if your TV is innovative and pulling the best numbers it ever had on TV.

The reason why WWE can keep re-hashing DX is because of their initial glory and notoriety. Something Nexus will never have. I don't wanna bash them though, they're doing great. They just contain rookies, of which most of them can't wrestle or carry a match and are unproven on the mic, or in the ring.

Xinkai

WWE obviously want to make them into top stars if they are throwing them into the ring with 7 of the top stars & somewhat WWE veterans.

That said

WWE obviously feel that the rookies that haven't been in a singles match yet are ready to compete, maybe they are making it 7v7 to hide some of the rookies weakness while continuing a storyline.

If Nexus keep on going strong & if they all actually become GOOD wrestlers, then one day i can see them being bigger than 09'10 DX, MAYBE Attitude Era DX, but nowhere near as good at Original DX, HHH, HBK & Chyna i mean.