Backstage Report On WWE's Long-Term Creative Plans For Brock Lesnar & Oba Femi Feud

At WrestleMania 42, Oba Femi seemed to take the step towards becoming WWE's brightest young star, not only defeating Brock Lesnar but seemingly sending him off into retirement. A month later and Femi found himself looking at the lights, losing to Lesnar in a rematch at Clash in Italy. The reason for that, according to Dave Meltzer on "Wrestling Observer Radio," is because WWE has one more match in mind for Lesnar and Femi.

"They want to do a one and one, and then Oba wins the third...kind of like what they did with Cody and Brock a couple of years ago," Meltzer said. "And that's just...if you're going to do a three match series, which has always been the plan in this feud...to do a three match series, then obviously you've got to split one and one."

Though he understood the logic behind the move, Meltzer criticized WWE for having Lesnar defeat Femi, feeling that such a loss was unnecessary for the former NXT Champion. And while he feels Femi will ultimately be fine in the big picture, Meltzer also felt the the loss made Femi weaker given his previous trajectory.

"Beating Oba Femi with Brock Lesnar, it just...it was just...I expected it, and I think that's part of the problem is I expected it because I know the thinking, and it's like they whiffed, bad," Meltzer said. "Not that it killed him and...like I said, he's going to win the next one. He'll be fine, he'll still be over. But they squandered his first loss building somebody, they took him from being something, someone unbeatable when he finally goes for the World Title, to someone we know 'Hey, he can be beaten. He's like everyone else.'"

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription