The Nexus

The first season of NXT began airing on Syfy on February 23, 2010 and ended on June 1, 2010. The plot of this innovated new show was for 8 FCW rookies to come into the NXT program to prove to people that they have what it takes to become a WWE superstar. Furthermore, who ever won the NXT season would receive a WWE contract and a title shot at a PPV. Season one rookies were, Darren Young, Daniel Bryan, David Otunga, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel, Skip Sheffield, Michael Tarver and Wade Barrett. The rookies competed in many challenges and matches each week. Fifteen episodes later elimination season started. On May 11th Daniel Bryan and Michael Tarver were eliminated from the competition. The remaining rookies continued to wrestle week after week. The rest of the rookies were eliminated and the winner of season 1 was Wade Barrett.

About a week later during a match pitting against John Cena and CM Punk NXT came out from the crowd and attacked Both Men. However, this was just the beginning NXT attacked time keepers, security guards, camera men and even the announce team, Matt Striker and Jerry Lawler. NXT then destroyed the ringside area by tearing up the ring, ripping of the safety pads from ringside and breaking TV monitors from the announce table. It was a night that the WWE universe and superstars will never forget. The other week on Raw the WWE board demanded that they go into the ring and apologize for what they did. Unfortunately NXT did not. (What a Surprise). NXT started talking about how they were never respected in there time in the WWE and demanded respect. A few minutes of their boring speech Raw GM Bret Hart came out and fired all 7 NXT members and had them removed from the building. Later that night during a tag match, the lights shut off and on the titantron showed NXT beating the hell out of Bret Hart. They tossed Bret into the back of a limo and brutally started smashing into other cars in the parking lot. It was continued about 3 times until NXT stopped and pulled Bret out of the limo and demanded next week he give all seven of them WWE contracts. The other week Bret was replaced by an anonymous Raw GM who still has not been shown yet, there is a laptop by the announce table where the mystery GM sends emails running raw. Seems like a dumb gimmick if you ask me and annoying. Who ever it is gave all seven NXT members their contracts.

Later on that night NXT demanded everyone to call them” The Nexus”, week after week Nexus continued destroying WWE superstars and legends. The life of story of the Dragon DVD was released, showing the amazing career and unforgettable matches of Ricky Steamboat. The dragon came out to the ring to promote and celebrate the releasing of his DVD with Dean Malenko, Michael P.S Hayes and Arn Anderson. During the middle of Ricky's speech Nexus came out and tried to attack the 4 legends. They held Nexus off for a moment until the numbers game caught up. Nexus one by one pulled three men out of the ring and started beating them down outside the ring. Steamboat was left in the ring alone and Nexus brutally beat him down executing all there finishing maneuvers on him. Steamboat was left motionless in the ring. Steamboat suffered Injuries to his neck and shoulders, two weeks later Mr. McMahon fell victim to NXT. The WWE locker room could not stand seeing the assaults on WWE anymore after getting screwed twice out if winning the WWE title John Cena rounded up a team of WWE superstars including himself...Edge, Chris Jericho, R-Truth, John Morrison, The Great Khali and Bret” The Hitman" Hart. They will battle Nexus at Summer Slam and hopefully end them once and for all. Rumor has it that there will be a leader to the whole NXT invasion. The rumors stated that Triple H will be the perpetrator of the whole thing thus making him a heel once again. However this is just a just rumor. The Game is not scheduled to return until mid October due to injuries, so if this is true...Then long live The Nexus.

Article by Wes

Goldust

Trained by his father, the legendary three-time NWA World Champion Dusty Rhodes and by Skandar Akbar, Runnels made his debut on September 13, 1988 as Dustin Rhodes, in the same stomping grounds where his father gained fame, Florida. After a short stint in the World Championship area, teaming with another second generation wrestler Kendall Windham (son of Blackjack Mulligan) as the Texas Broncos, Rhodes went to Japan to wrestle for All Japan Pro Wrestling, teaming with Tom Zenk to defeat Isao Takagi and John Tenta in Karasuyama, Japan.

Rhodes returned to Florida and teamed first with his father and then with Mike Graham, himself the son of legendary Eddie Graham. In May 1989, Graham and Rhodes teamed to defeat Bobby Jaggers and Black Bart to win the Florida Tag Team titles, although they dropped the belts to Bart and Tony Anthony a few weeks later. On May 23, 1989, Rhodes defeated Al Perez to win the Florida Championship Wrestling Heavyweight title.

After losing the FCW belt to Kendall Windham, Rhodes moved on to the CWA and USWA, making it to the finals of a tournament for the USWA Southern Heavyweight title, before losing to the Dirty White Boy. After several more months in the USWA, Rhodes joined his father in WWE.

Attacked by Ted Dibiase during one of his father's matches, Dustin joined forces with Dusty against Dibiase and Virgil. Soon after a tag team loss at the 1991 Royal Rumble, both Rhodes were gone from WWE, with Dustin resurfacing in WCW.

Rhodes quickly worked his way up in WCW, defeating Buddy Landell and Richard Morton and even battling Steve Austin to a 15-minute draw at Halloween Havoc '91. But prior to that, he would team with Tom Zenk and Big Josh (Matt Borne) to win the NWA World 6-Man Tag Team titles in August '91.

He would team with his former Texas Broncos tag partner's brother, Barry Windham, only to see Windham injured by Arn Anderson and Larry Zbyszko just before a tag team title match. Rhodes revealed his mystery partner to be Ricky Steamboat and the pair won the WCW Tag Team titles on November 19, 1991.

Even after the loss of the tag titles, Rhodes remained one of the rising stars in WCW, and allied himself with Sting against the Dangerous Alliance, culminating in a WarGames match at WrestleWar. Rhodes and Windham continued to team together, making it to the finals of the NWA World Tag Team title tournament, before losing to Steve Williams and Terry Gordy. However, Windham and Rhodes would take the unified WCW and NWA Tag titles in September.

The partnership between Windham and Rhodes would last only until they lost the titles to Steamboat and Shane Douglas, when Windham turned on Rhodes when Dustin wouldn't go for a pinfall on an injured Steamboat. In a twist of fate, it would be Steamboat that Rhodes beat in January 1993 to win the vacant U.S. Championship, a title Rhodes would hold for most of 1993, even after dropping it temporarily to Rick Rude, before finally losing to Steve Austin at Starrcade '93.


After jumping from independent booking to TNA in which he played a character call Black Reign.On March 3, 2010, Goldust joined the SmackDown brand, making it the first time that Goldust had ever been officially on the SmackDown roster. He made his debut for the brand on the March 4 edition of WWE Superstars in a losing effort against Chris Jericho. The next week on Superstars he defeated Mike Knox. He appeared in a dark 26-man battle royal match at WrestleMania XXVI, but failed to win, although his past ally Yoshi Tatsu won.

As part of the 2010 WWE Supplemental Draft, Goldust was drafted back to the Raw brand. On the May 3 episode of Raw, Goldust made his re-debut for the brand in a backstage segment with guest host for that week, Wayne Brady. The following week, on the May 10th episode of Raw, Goldust teamed with John Morrison, Yoshi Tatsu and Santino Marella in a losing effort against all eight of the NXT Rookies when Bryan rolled up Santino Marella for the win. On the May 20th edition of WWE Superstars, Goldust went on to face William Regal in a winning effort executing his finisher move, the Final Cut.