WWE began a major storyline at the end of this week’s RAW with the NXT season 1 Rookies. The angle began when Wade Barrett appeared on the ramp during the main event of John Cena vs. CM Punk.
Then the other seven season 1 Rookies – Daniel Bryan, Michael Tarver, Skip Sheffield, Darren Young, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel and David Otunga – all appeared from the crowd and surrounded the ring. All Rookies were wearing black armbands with a yellow “N” on them.
The Rookies proceeded to beat up the Straight Edge Society, John Cena, the WWE announcers and crew members working at ringside. They destroyed the ring and the announcer’s table, leaving the whole ringside area torn up.
It will be interesting to see where WWE goes from here. The angle sparked interest among fans as soon as it happened with NXT trending on Twitter, among other surges in traffic. Our website traffic this week immediately following RAW was off the charts. We were at post-PPV night traffic which never happens after RAW. We usually get a decent increase following RAW but nothing like what we had this week.
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