This past June, Oba Femi won the King of the Ring tournament at Night of Champions, which granted him the opportunity to challenge for a world title at SummerSlam. However, during the "WWE Raw" following Night of Champions, Brock Lesnar returned to continue his feud with Femi and challenged him to a trilogy match at "The Biggest Party of the Summer," but this time inside Hell In A Cell. Surprisingly, Femi not only accepted, but forfeited his title opportunity at SummerSlam in order to face Lesnar.Femi's decision immediately caused confusion, as many fans couldn't understand why "The Ruler" would be scheduled to win the tournament if he was never planned to fight for a world title at SummerSlam, leading Wrestling Obsever's Dave Meltzer to offer some potential reasons for WWE's booking."They wanted him to win King of the Ring and give him a big push coming off of the loss to Brock and they felt they needed something really big, but they don't want to do the championship match until Mania," Meltzer explained on the "Wrestling Observer Radio." "But they wanted to get that in your head that this guy is in the championship picture and he's the real top contender and when we get to it, it's not just a title match, but a special title match."
If WWE was truly committed to having Femi win the King of the Ring tournament while having one more match with Lesnar, the best outcome would've been for the company to take advantage of SummerSlam being a two-night event. On night one, Femi could've had his rubber match with Lesnar, and on night two, challenge for a world title in the main event. This way, Femi could defeat Lesnar and become world champion in the same weekend, which would conclude his feud with"The Beast" while capitalizing on hisKing of the Ring victory. However, if WWE never intended on positioning Femi to challenge for a world title at SummerSlam, the promotion should've considered an alternative option for theKing of the Ring tournament.It's already been reported that WWE had planned forSeth Rollins to challenge Roman Reigns for the World Heavyweight Title at SummerSlam for quite some time, meaning the easy option would've been to have "The Visionary" becomeKing of the Ring. Instead, the company opted to have Rollins defeat Bron Breakker at Night of Champions to wrap up their feud together, a decision that was largely criticized by fans and pundits.Although Meltzer is suggesting that Femi became King of the Ring just to reassure fans that he's still in the title picture, it still made the tournament feel pointless, especially when one of the entrants who lost in the competition is challenging for a world championship at SummerSlam.If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
