Let me get the housekeeping out of the way first. The story floating around that Brock Lesnar threw his weight around to close SummerSlam Night One? Dead. Buried. Creative made that call themselves. And honestly, good — because it means somebody in that building looked at what they had and made the correct decision instead of the comfortable one.
Now let’s talk about what actually matters.
Oba Femi just beat Brock Lesnar inside Hell in a Cell, in the main event of SummerSlam, and then Lesnar — Brock Lesnar — put him over on the way out. You understand what that is? That’s a receipt signed, sealed, and hand-delivered. There are guys who’ve been on that roster for a decade who couldn’t get Lesnar to look their direction twice. Oba Femi got the clean finish AND the endorsement. That’s not just a win. That’s a coronation with a witness.
Here’s where I’ve seen this go wrong a hundred times, though — and this is where I need WWE to hear me clearly. The move to main event was right. The finish was right. The Lesnar stamp of approval was right. Three correct decisions in a row is enough to make a thirty-year veteran nervous, because the fourth move is where the wheels traditionally come off the wagon.
You’ve got Punk and Cody in a championship program with Orton apparently sticking his nose in, which means the top of the card is already a crowded room. The temptation — and I’ve watched this temptation win too many times — is to let Oba Femi stall in neutral while the “real” main event gets all the oxygen. Let him be featured without being *central*. Give him a program that pays off in a pre-show slot four months from now.
Don’t. Do not do that to this kid.
He’s 25 years old, he’s the size of a building, he moves like a cruiserweight on a good day, and he just closed SummerSlam on the back of a man who has made careers by not putting people over. The crowd is warm right now. They believed in what they saw. That belief is a living thing — it can be nurtured or it can be starved.
The booking was good this weekend. I’ll say it plainly. But good booking isn’t a destination, it’s a debt. WWE now owes Oba Femi the follow-through.
Pay the man.
