In a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet, David Otunga opened up about the controversial main event of SummerSlam 2010. The match saw The Nexus, a group of rookies from the first season of NXT, face off against Team WWE, captained by John Cena. Despite the momentum The Nexus had built over the summer, they ultimately lost the match, a decision that has been heavily criticized by fans for years. When asked if Cena “buried” the group, Otunga did not mince words.
“Oh yeah, that’s 100% accurate,” Otunga said. “I mean, that’s what happened, that is what happened,” Otunga confirmed that the original plan was for The Nexus to win the match, but the finish was changed because Cena wanted to be the victor. “We knew all day we were supposed to go over, and then things started getting weird, and then they tell us, no, the finish changed, and it’s because John wanted to go over, and we weren’t happy about that. The other guys in the match weren’t happy about that.”
The finish of the match famously saw Cena take a DDT on the exposed concrete floor, only to recover shortly after and eliminate the remaining members of The Nexus to win the match for his team. Otunga believes that even Cena likely regrets the decision now. “If I’m being honest, I think John probably knows that wasn’t the right idea. I mean, maybe obviously, at the time, he thought that was the right call, but in retrospect, I don’t even think he would agree that that was the right thing to do.”
Otunga argued that the loss halted the group’s momentum significantly. “You spend six months or however long it was building this faction, and we’re the strongest thing, we’re the hottest thing they have. Then, why would you have us lose that? This is the main event. To really build these new stars, you want us to keep going. We could have rode this all the way to Mania, but then after that, we’ve now lost and that took us down a few pegs.”
Otunga went on to compare The Nexus to another dominant WWE faction, The Shield, suggesting that The Shield was essentially “Nexus 2.0” and that the company corrected the mistakes they made with the original group.
“I think we would have had a major run kind of like The Shield. Because if you ask me, I feel like The Shield was Nexus 2.0. What they did with The Shield, everything they did wrong in Nexus, they made sure they did it right with The Shield. That’s my opinion. So I assume we would have had a run kind of similar to that.”
John Cena is currently in the midst of his retirement tour, dubbed “The Last Time is Now.” He recently defeated Dominik Mysterio to capture the Intercontinental Championship on Monday Night Raw, completing his Grand Slam. His final match is scheduled to take place on December 13 at Saturday Night’s Main Event in Washington, D.C., with a tournament currently underway to determine his final opponent.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Insight With Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. You can subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
