New NXT champ Oba Femi is ready to rule

Harvard graduate Nicklette Izuegbu wrote and starred in a web series called "Nneka the Uber Driver," loosely based on her life as a first generation Nigerian-American. The series revolves around her trying to get her family to embrace her titular career and explores the idea of expectations across cultures.

Newly crowned NXT Champion Oba Femi, an award-winning track and field athlete throughout college, had a similar conversation with his Nigerian parents when he chose to switch singlets and focus on professional wrestling as his trade. But where Nneka was met with disbelief, Femi's career move made a lot more sense to his folks than his old one. “[Wrestling was] easy to explain," he tells Uncrowned, "because imagine having to explain to your parents that you are going to go throw a metal ball [shot put] as far as you can for a living.” Throwing that metal ball has served as great preparation for throwing grown adults, and now that “The Ruler” has found his groove, he’s looking to see just how far he can go.

Wrestling’s fascination with former college athletes isn’t new. From Ron Simmons to Roman Reigns, Bob Backlund to Bianca Belair, collegiate stars are some of wrestling's most well-known names. Between the men and women, former college wrestlers, basketball players, football players and track athletes have been featured in main events in the majority of WrestleManias. But Femi is the first real star produced under WWE’s NIL program, designed to be a direct pipeline from college to the WWE. A former shot putter for Middle Tennessee State University and later Alabama, Femi signed on with the program going into his final year of college eligibility. Despite being a two-time SEC champion in his chosen event, he put all professional aspirations on hold for the chance to succeed in a brand new field.

“I'm a man of commitment. If I decided tomorrow that I wanted to be a librarian, I will become the best librarian I could possibly be," he says. "From the second I did sign, it was a commitment, and I really committed myself and threw myself into this. Being a fan [of wrestling] helped.”

There’s an energy, a feeling when Femi comes through the proverbial curtain. He feels important in a way you can’t teach, and lets the people decide if they want to love or hate his words and actions. It feels like he’s running with blinders on, locked into the task at hand. The crowd even honors his verbal inflection with a deep “Uh!” chant that mirrors Steve Austin’s infamous “What?” In just over two years, he’s become NXT’s longest-reigning North American Champion to date and now holds its top title after defeating Trick Williams at New Year’s Evil. And while he jokes with the crowd about it, he’s even a bit surprised at how fast he’s picked up the game and how much success he’s found in it so early on.

“No one ever [expects immediate success]. If they said they did, they lied," Femi says. "It was never a question of my capabilities as a performer. I've always known eventually I would get this thing down.”

You can teach technique, you can practice promos, but you can’t teach timing. In a wrestling ecosystem where more and more people are capable of huge athletic feats, Femi is a willful throwback to the Ice Trains and Scott Nortons of the world. Femi says he finds inspiration in talents like Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker, both oh whom are former college athletes he praises for their fluidity. Like so many of the big men of yesteryear, he’s saving his big feats for the big moments, and in the meantime, he’s looking to bulldoze the competition. “It's not the moves, it's the understanding of what professional wrestling is in the first place," he says.

"I've come around at a very opportune time when big-man wrestling is not the main thing. It's become like a niche, almost a lost art because everyone's doing Canadian Destroyers and everyone's high flying and everyone's spring-boarding, trying to pop the crowd. ... It's refreshing that the fans get to see an Oba Femi who comes in and stays on the ground and is physical and fires up and is riled up. I think people miss that.” NXT vice president Shawn Michaels makes it a point to bring up Femi when talking about the talents he sees as being centerpieces of WWE’s future. The Rock, who made a quick stop by NXT the same week as the "WWE Raw" Netflix debut, even found Femi backstage and shared a few words of encouragement with him. “He said, ‘Good job, great match. Can't wait to see you on the main roster,’” Femi recalls.

A large part of Femi’s fast maturation was the talent put across from him from the start. While NXT is WWE’s developmental brand, it houses a lot of wrestling industry veterans, both as coaches and competitors. “It's really a team sport," he says. "It's rivalries and competition, but at the same time it's healthy competition and we all want to see each other win.” At Stand and Deliver 2024, Femi successfully defended the North American Championship against both Dijak and Josh Briggs, longtime veterans. He’s quick to express how much both of them helped him early on understanding pacing and making sure you aren’t just following one formula from match to match. “Josh Briggs and Dijak told me, 'When they think you're going here, that's the time where you give them the swerve.'”

On his way to becoming the division’s longest reigning champion, Femi faced former record-holder Wes Lee multiple times and ended their rivalry after defeating Lee at NXT Heatwave. “It's just the little things he would tell me while we were working together," Femi says. "There'll be moments where it'll be time to go and he would say, 'No, hold, wait. Not yet. Let them get the sympathy. Let's milk this moment.' It's just those little nuggets that Wes was able to pass down to me. Wes, as smaller of a frame he has, he brought it. It takes a special competitor, performer to bring things out of you."

Femi also has a group of contemporaries that he feels not only pushes one another, but has the chance to be NXT’s next special crop of talent. “Me, Tony DiAngelo, Lexis King, Trick Williams," he says. "We all have that mindset of, 'Oh, we're out there. Bring it. Bring it to me. Let's make this good. Let's give these fans what they came to see. Let's make their money's worth. Let's give them their money's worth.' I'm so glad we have that healthy relationship.”

With the size, power and ability to bring out the best of his opponents, Femi is on the fast track to wrestling superstardom. He’s already setting records, he’s surrounded by his industry’s best and brightest, and has the attention of the people who are always looking for the next big thing. But for the time being, his entire focus is on getting better at his new craft, day by day. “I don't focus on things like [winning a title] as the big wins," he says. "This is great for me and the company as well because I plan to represent this brand the best I can.

"But it's little things like putting someone else over, making someone a new star, passing on the title, passing on the mantle, having a good match with someone they didn't think you were going to have a good match with — those are the wins for me. It's never about the accolades in and of itself. If you chase the small victories and fall in love with the craft, you always achieve the big things.”