Photo: Jonathan Rivera / Flickr, CC BY 2.0
Brock Lesnar defeating Oba Femi at Clash in Italy on 31 May 2026 was not just an unexpected result.
It was a creative decision that actively undermined one of the best stories WWE has told in years. Six weeks earlier, at WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas, Femi pinned Lesnar cleanly in five minutes, stood over the fallen Beast, and watched the 48-year-old legend leave his boots and gloves in the ring as a tearful farewell.
That image travelled everywhere. It was the most talked-about moment of WrestleMania weekend. Then WWE decided to reopen the story, bring Lesnar back, and hand him the win in Turin. Just like that, a perfect ending had an unwanted sequel.
This decision to book a rematch was baffling from the moment Lesnar attacked Femi during his open challenge segment on Raw, 18 May. The story had already been told, cleanly and memorably. Femi slayed the beast, and the torch was passed. Lesnar cried. Paul Heyman embraced him, and the wrestling world exhaled.
Reopening that chapter served no obvious creative purpose, and now that Lesnar has won the rematch, the damage to Femi’s carefully constructed image is real, measurable, and entirely avoidable.
For most fans who watched Femi become the most talked-about star in WWE almost overnight, this stings in a particular way. His WrestleMania win was not just a sporting moment. It was a cultural one. A 27-year-old from Lagos becoming the man who retired Brock Lesnar is not a story WWE tells every year.
Giving Lesnar a win back, at a secondary event no less, chips away at what that moment meant. And for a company trying to build its next generational star, chipping away at that foundation is a costly mistake.
Table of Contents
WrestleMania 42 Got It Right
At WrestleMania, the match itself was close to perfect in its simplicity. Femi absorbed four consecutive F-5s, stood up from each one, and finished Lesnar with a chokeslam and the Fall From Grace. That match lasted five minutes. There was no overbooked interference, no referee stoppage, no controversial finish. Just a clean, decisive victory that sent an unmistakable message: a new force had arrived.
Lesnar’s post-match retirement gesture was what elevated the result from memorable to historic. Leaving his boots and gloves in the ring is the most powerful symbolic act a wrestler can perform. It signals permanence. It signals finality. WWE reinforced that message by running tribute packages in the weeks that followed. Paul Heyman told reporters Lesnar was done. Therefore, the story had a beginning, a middle, and a genuinely moving ending.
Then they brought him back less than 30 days later.
Why the Rematch Was a Mistake Before It Even Happened
The problems with booking a rematch were obvious before a single bell rang in Turin. Consider the two possible outcomes:
- If Femi wins again: It confirms what WrestleMania already told us. Nothing is gained.
- If Lesnar wins: Femi loses the aura that took months to build. Lesnar becomes the man who came back to reclaim his W from a youngster. Neither man looks better for it.
WWE chose option two. Lesnar won after seven F-5s, a Kimura Lock, and an announce table spot. However, the match was competitive and entertaining on its own terms. But competitiveness and entertainment are not the point. What matters is what it means for Femi in the future.
He is now 1-1 against Brock Lesnar. He is no longer the man who retired the Beast. He is the man who split a feud with him. That distinction matters enormously in professional wrestling, where perception drives everything.
The Femi Problem WWE Has Created
Oba Femi was on course to challenge Roman Reigns for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam in Minneapolis. WWE planted that seed explicitly: Femi confronted Reigns backstage after WrestleMania Night 2, and the OTC responded publicly the following week on Raw. The trajectory was clear and compelling.
Key facts about Femi’s booking since WrestleMania:
- Weeks of open challenge squash matches against Otis, Los Garza, and others
- A loss to Lesnar at Clash in Italy despite absorbing seven F-5s
- Now entered in the King of the Ring tournament, where he debuted with a win on the 1 June Raw
- Still teased as a future title challenger, but with his momentum noticeably disrupted
Even the open challenge run did him no favours either. Squashing enhancement talent is not the same as building a star. And now, with a high-profile loss on his record against an opponent he had already beaten definitively, Femi walks into the King of the Ring with a question mark over him that did not exist six weeks ago.
The Lesnar Problem WWE Has Also Created
Meanwhile, the argument that this booking protects Lesnar is equally flawed. Lesnar is 48 years old, widely expected to retire at SummerSlam in his home state of Minnesota, and is building towards what is likely a final match. His most logical opponent is Gunther, who already has Lesnar connections through Paul Heyman and who has built his entire character around retiring legends.
A Gunther vs Lesnar match writes itself as the perfect farewell: the Ring General ending the Beast’s career on the second-biggest stage of the year. But that match is now complicated. If Lesnar just beat Femi, how damaged does he look losing to Gunther immediately after? And if he beats Gunther too, does the retirement actually land with the same weight as WrestleMania 42 suggested it would?
WWE has created a problem in both directions by reversing a result that did not need to be reversed.
A Story Worth Protecting
The original WrestleMania result did something rare in modern professional wrestling. It made fans genuinely feel something. Looking at the retirement gesture, the crowd response, and the global reaction on social media all pointed to a company hitting on something real and important. Stories like that deserve to be protected.
Instead, TKO and WWE chose the ticket-selling logic of a rematch. Turin needed a marquee. Minneapolis needs a storyline. The Lesnar vs Femi feud generates revenue across multiple premium live events. All of that is true. But the best long-term business decision is to protect your rising star’s credibility above all else. Femi challenging Reigns for the title at SummerSlam is a far bigger money match than Lesnar vs Femi 3 in Minneapolis.
WWE got one of the great WrestleMania moments right in April. In Turin, they spent some of it carelessly. Oba Femi will recover.
