Oba Femi initially signed on to WWE in December 2021 as part of the NIL (Subsequent In Line) program, which acts as a pipeline between collegiate athletes and WWE. Femi, a former College of Alabama Monitor & Area star, got here into the corporate with zero wrestling expertise. Fortunately for him, although, he appeared to select up on it fairly quickly.
“I discover myself to be fairly adaptable to all the things,” Femi advised “The Ringer Wrestling Present.” No matter what it’s, all the things I’ve ever finished, I at all times discover that it’s for me. For wrestling, it clicked approach earlier than I used to be even on TV. It is at all times one in all these items that I simply know. I do know what I am able to as a human being, and I understand how quick I choose up issues and the way I study. I am like, okay, I can positively do that. This was like perhaps two months in.
“Everybody has that second of like, okay, I am coming into this new place, it is the [WWE] PC, they will educate me how one can wrestle and all these items. Everybody’s attempting to determine the place their place is. I might say I discovered my place in wrestling fairly simply and really quick.”
Femi’s first professional wrestling match passed off in November 2022. Over the following yr, he competed in varied bouts throughout “WWE NXT Stage Up” and “NXT” dwell occasions earlier than making his becoming breakout within the “NXT” Males’s Breakout Match on tv. Femi later received this match and opted to cash-in his assured title shot on the NXT North American Champion Dragon Lee. This finally set the stage for Femi’s subsequent and history-making reign as champion, which spanned 273 days.
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