WWE Urged To Give Current Champion “The Ryback Treatment”
A former WWE superstar thinks the company needs to push a current champion in a manner similar to how it did with Ryback many years ago.
The December 13th WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event special was mainly about John Cena’s final WWE match against Gunther, which Cena lost by tapping out to the dreaded Sleeper. However, the match was also about the future.
As requested by Cena himself, many current WWE main roster wrestlers faced some future stars.
One of the big undercard matches saw the Unisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes face off against NXT Champion Oba Femi, who is only 27 and only been wrestling for about three years. Femi more than held his own in the match, but there was no winner because Drew McIntyre attacked Rhodes. After the match, Rhodes and Femi worked together to beat up McIntyre.
Oba Femi Should Be Pushed By WWE The Way Ryback Was Pushed
Ryback was a WWE superstar in the 2010s who was first known by fans as a Tough Enough contestant in 2004. Eventually, he got signed and became Skip Sheffield. He was even part of the original version of Nexus.
After WrestleMania 28 in 2012, Skip’s days were done because he became known as Ryback. The powerful Ryback went on a dominant run in 2012 that would see him in PLE main events with the likes of CM Punk and John Cena. Ryback failed to win the WWE Title, but he did become Intercontinental Champion later in his career.
Regarding Ryback’s push to becoming a WWE main event, former WWE superstar Stevie Richards made the point on his YouTube channel that the company should book Femi like Ryback whenever Oba joins the main roster.
“I think this was a great test to see if he could potentially, eventually be a main roster talent, no, no you don’t put him in…like we talked about.
That’s what is wrong with WWE. You start up here (the top) and go down. I want vignettes, I want locals, I want the Ryback treatment for this guy. Two or three locals, then give him the US Title or Intercontinental Title.
That was the testing ground to be the World Heavyweight Champion back in the 80s. I think we follow that blueprint.”
For now, Femi remains in NXT and is set to defend the championship against TNA’s Leon Slater at New Year’s Evil on January 6th.
As for John Cena, he sees a bright future in WWE for NXT Champion Oba Femi.
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