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1) Wade Barrett - Easily the standout of the group, and the best newcomer to WWE in years. He's fantastic on the mic, he's very good in the ring, and he has a very well-developed character. It makes perfect sense that the other six would follow him, because he has it.
2) Justin Gabriel - NXT hurt him a lot, because it exposed his weak mic skills and basically pegged him as a guy with one move. Granted, his 450 is pretty much perfect, but it still didn't look like he was going to be much more than a bump machine. Being a part of Nexus has helped cover up the fact that he can't talk, and it's done the near-impossible - the 450 actually looks menacing.
3) Skip Sheffield - Another guy who has made leaps and bounds improvements since the formation of Nexus. In FCW, his character before Sheffield was a Terminator-like killing machine, and he was a natural in that role. He has a scary look that was wasted in his happy-go-lucky Texan character. Now that he's gone back to being a (mostly) silent killer, he's back to being compelling. Yup yup yup what it do.
4) David Otunga - I feel bad for "A-List." The guy can talk, and it looked in the early days of NXT that he and Danielson were going to be the top stars to come out of it. NXT exposed the fact that he wasn't that solid in the ring, so hiding him in these group beatdowns is a good thing for now. Hopefully, he's been working with the agents so that when he does get his chance in the ring, he looks better than he did on Tuesday nights.
5) Michael Tarver - I've been watching Tarver since the debut of the FCW TV show, the first time he and Barrett were stablemates, and the only real improvement he's shown is on the mic. He was playing a devil's advocate character before getting the call-up, and it gave him a voice to go with his look, but he still can't work. It still bothers me that a guy who can supposedly knock somebody out in 0.9 seconds has yet to knock anybody out.
6) Darren Young - Darren looked like he was going to break out on NXT during the whole Straight Edge Society angle, but he's been hung out to dry ever since. He can work decently well, but his mic work needs improvement, and the fact that he looks like John Cena fell asleep on a tanning bed isn't doing him any favors. He's got the tools, but creative clearly doesn't know what to do with him.
7) Heath Slater - The guy's a solid worker, but that's about all he's got going for him. As mentioned before, he looks and moves like a babyface, so he's very much out of place in Nexus.
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