WWE’s original plans for Oba Femi’s King of the Ring run reportedly looked very different from how things actually played out.
According to Billi Bhatti on the Dirty Sheets Podcast, the initial idea had Brock Lesnar interfering during the King of the Ring tournament to cost Oba Femi his shot at winning it outright.
Somewhere along the way, though, WWE changed course. Instead of Lesnar spoiling the tournament, the promotion had Oba Femi win King of the Ring as planned — only to then have him delay cashing in his title opportunity so he could face Lesnar first.
The big letdown here for the build is the fact that Oba Femi is the King of the Ring and had to relinquish a title opportunity to instead face Brock Lesnar. There was no need for that.
Bhatti wasn’t shy about criticizing the shift. He pointed out that the change makes the build noticeably harder to explain to fans, since Oba now has to justify walking away from a guaranteed title match just to step into the ring with Lesnar. In his view, there was no real need to complicate the story that way.
If you didn’t want to beat Oba Femi, don’t put him in the King of the Ring. The original plan was for Brock Lesnar to interfere to cost him the King of the Ring.”
“In the end, we had Oba Femi say that he wants to face Brock Lesnar before he uses up his title shot because Brock Lesnar is going to cost him. Well, if he was going to cost you, why didn’t he cost you in the King of the Ring tournament? It really doesn’t make any sense.
Bhatti made it clear that he believes WWE changed course without properly fixing the rest of the storyline. That wasn’t the only original plan Bhatti discussed. He also claimed Lesnar was supposed to defeat Oba at SummerSlam, tie their series at one win each, and set up a third match later.
They’ve got unnecessary logic holes here which have damaged the story.”
“I think this was supposed to go on longer. Originally, Brock Lesnar was supposed to win this match to tie it up at one-to-one, and they were supposed to have their third match later on down the line.
Whether the pivot was about protecting Lesnar’s aura, building anticipation for a bigger moment down the line, or simply a case of WWE’s plans shifting on the fly, it leaves Oba Femi in an interesting spot: a King of the Ring winner who’s putting his crowning achievement on hold for a shot at wrestling’s most dominant attraction.
Lesnar and Femi are set to lock horns inside Hell in A Cell at WWE SummerSlam on August 1.
