Oba Femi discusses wanting to make his character feel authentic.
Despite signing with WWE in 2021, it wasn’t until 2023 that Oba Femi burst onto the scene by winning NXT’s Breakout Tournament. Quickly rising through the ranks, he picked up reigns as North American and NXT Champion respectively while basing his character on his Nigerian roots. Now, Femi has opened up what’s important to him when it comes to his character.
In an interview with BBC Sport, Femi talked about wanting to make his character feel like a real human being by integrating his Nigerian heritage.
“A lot of people go out there and pretend to be wrestlers and pretend to be something they’re not. But for me, it’s like, how much of a human being can I put into this one character? Let me have that natural cadence of a Nigerian man. What does a Nigerian man who is egotistical, poised and all that, how does he fit into the wrestling meta? And I think I’ve been able to figure that out.”
-Oba Femi
From this, Femi would touch on how he grew up thinking it was unrealistic that he’d make it to WWE, expressing how a goal of his is to help African kids to dream big.
“I grew up a fan, and I was like, ‘Man, I would kill to be a wrestler.’ But it just didn’t feel plausible. I mean, Africa is run out of the United States. They don’t even really come to Africa for live events. You start telling yourself all these things. My goal is not necessarily to make young kids come and wrestle. That’s not the goal, but my goal is more to let them know that you can dream big and it’s okay and it’s possible.”
-Oba Femi
Femi became a two-time NXT Champion on December 6, earning the right to face Cody Rhodes at Saturday Night’s Main Event the following week. Despite his match with the Undisputed WWE Champion ending in a no contest, ‘The Ruler’ impressed during his main roster debut and many fans are looking forward to seeing him make the move to either RAW or SmackDown in the future.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Oba Femi as soon as we hear more.
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