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THE OBA FEMI CHALLENGE STORY MAKES LITTLE SENSE THUS FAR, BUT THERE'S ONE NAME THAT CAN FIX THAT

The Oba Femi Challenge is completely backwards and in my opinion, it's not going to work.

The Challenge, which started this past Monday - what exactly is it supposed to accomplish?

Femi has issued an open challenge for anyone to face him.

Within the context of WWE storylines, Femi not only beat Brock Lesnar, but retired him.

In the weeks leading up to their Wrestlemania match, he basically emasculated Brock by completing out-manning him every single time.

Brock was the Beast, right?  The guy who bloodied and knocked out Randy Orton, who destroyed John Cena in five minutes, who ravaged, pillaged and destroyed everyone from Hulk Hogan to Randy Couture to The Rock.  The monster who ended the Undertaker's stream.

With all apologies to Orton, Lesnar was the guy presented as the Apex Predator for his entire WWE run, until the day Oba Femi beat him so bad at Wrestlemania 42 that Lesnar decided to "retire."

Now, the audience is supposed to believe that random people are lining up to fight Oba?

The guy just took out Brock Lesnar, and the audience is supposed to believe people who weren't even on the Wrestlemania card think they have a chance to beating Oba?

No one should want to fight Oba.

Hell, guys should be running from the ring when they realize they are fighting Oba.

He's the next big thing, right?

With all due respect to Otis, no one was going to believe he had a chance against Femi - but no one's going to believe that Otis thought he had a chance either, because the entire idea is backwards.

WWE has to do something with Femi to keep his momentum going.  They are obviously onto something with him and the audience wants to be behind him, but Femi wrestling random people to beat them actually accomplishes less than if they went the old route of Andre the Giant wrestling 2-4 enhancement talents at the same time and wiping them out, because unless it's a top flight guy who walks out for the challenge, we know the ending of the segment before it starts.  At least if Oba was wiping out a few people at the same time, there could be some moments where he showcases his power and reiterates what a monster he is.

In my mind, there was only one proper move for Femi coming out of Wrestlemania in my opinion, and that was calling out Roman Reigns for the WWE World Heavyweight title.  Hell, I could make an argument that Femi should have shocked the world and won the title from Roman on Raw the day after Wrestlemania.

WWE, obviously, had a different idea, and that's fine.

But the idea should be to continue his ascension, not keep Oba Femi running on a treadmill to nowhere.

The audience wants to get behind Femi, but unless WWE has something meaningful for him to do, that will fade, quicker than Lesnar's loss at Wrestlemania 42.

But there's a way to quickly remedy that and prevent the audience from losing interest.

In my mind, WWE needs to send GUNTHER out to challenge Femi ASAP.  GUNTHER has taken out several major names in John Cena, AJ Styles and Bill Goldberg and now Oba has taken out Brock.   People can buy GUNTHER believing he can take Femi out and it's someone who physically actually has a shot when you look at the tale of the tape.    It's the perfect story - the irresistible force and the immovable object, so WWE should get there, and soon, before the moment is lost.

Oba wrestling random folks who have no chance of beating him - and shouldn't want to fight him anyway - is a wasted effort and if WWE is going to waste that effort, what was the point of getting Femi to this position in the first place?

There's a time and a place to do a slow burn, but Oba Femi is lightning in a bottle right now, so it's time for WWE to throw some gas on that fire, not let the embers start to fade.  That was the Vince McMahon way for too many talents over the years who had a great upside, but none of them came out of a Wrestlemania crushing Brock Lesnar. 

As great as it is to see the audience, especially children, doing Femi's strut as he walks to the ring, they will recognize fairly quickly when something is getting old - and they, and Femi deserve better.

Cue GUNTHER.

ASAP.

Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.

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