Oba Femi winning King of the Ring was always planned to lead not to a title shot against World Champion Roman Reigns, but to a match with Brock Lesnar — with the long-term goal of making Reigns vs. Femi as significant of a match as possible by delaying it, according to Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Meltzer elaborated on the thinking behind the creative decision.
The decision was always for Femi to win King of the Ring but turn down his title shot at Reigns for a match with Lesnar. The idea was to create Reigns vs. Femi as the biggest match possible. I can’t say with certainty that means save it for WrestleMania, but my thought going in was that why should he win a shot at Reigns for SummerSlam when it’s too soon and needs more of a chase, and I don’t think his losing the first time to Reigns is the right idea. Of course it did work for Cody Rhodes in the long-run. But each person is different. What works for Rhodes would work for Will Ospreay but failed to work for Lex Luger and wouldn’t have worked for Bill Goldberg. Femi is closer to a Goldberg. But SummerSlam was too early.
Femi defeated Jey Uso in the King of the Ring final at Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia. At SummerSlam next month, Reigns will defend the World Title against Seth Rollins while Lesnar meets Femi in a triple bout that will be held inside Hell in a Cell.