During last night’s edition of NXT, Oba Femi shockingly captured the NXT North American Championship in just the sixth televised match of his professional wrestling career. Femi cashed in his guaranteed shot at Dragon Lee’s title, which he earned through winning the NXT Men’s Breakout Tournament at New Year’s Evil last week, following Lee’s successful defence over Lexis King. Femi quickly hit Lee with his pop-up powerbomb finisher and got the pinfall to win WWE gold.
With his shock title win, Femi makes WWE history in two separate aspects. The 22-year-old is now the youngest NXT North American Champion in history, beating out The Velveteen Dream – who first captured the title at the age of 23 back in 2019 – for the record. In addition, Femi is also the very first athlete signed through WWE’s Next In Line program to win one of the company’s championships.
Femi has quickly risen to prominence within the black and gold brand over the last few weeks thanks to his participation in the 2023/24 NXT Men’s Breakout Tournament. After overcoming Myles Borne and Tavion Heights in the first and second rounds respectively, Femi went on to defeat Riley Osborne in the final at NXT New Year’s Evil 2024 to win the tournament. He follows in the footsteps of previous winners Jordan Myles, Carmelo Hayes, Roxanne Perez, and Lola Vice.
This isn’t the first NXT troubles that Dragon Lee, the man Femi dethroned, has faced recently. Lee was set to team up with Joaquin Wilde and Cruz del Toro of the LWO to take on the No Quarter Catch Club at last week’s NXT New Year’s Evil special but unfortunately missed the show entirely due to visa issues, which Haus of Wrestling exclusively reported was a legitimate issue and not part of a storyline. He was replaced on the show by Wilde and Toro’s LWO stablemate Carlito.