WWE star Oba Femi appeared on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast, where he discussed various topics, including what 17-time World Champion John Cena shared with him about “look at me” moments.
Femi said, “He’s very big on look-at-me moments. I don’t know if you’ve heard the story with he, and at the time, Cesaro, where he told Cesaro to go get the ball that was being thrown around in the audience and pop the ball like, but he’s very big on you know crowd interaction and look at me moments. So, like he was telling me like, he told me that he understands that NXT is a very like fast-paced style of wrestling because that’s what Shawn [Michaels] wants. But at the same time, he encouraged me to, when the opponent is down, I should always take my time to interact with the crowd and, you know, do something that will be memorable to them so they can always remember me. So that’s one of the things that John said to me that stuck. That that was that was a pretty big one amongst many other things, but that was the big takeaway.”
On what felt better between his primetime debut at Saturday Night’s Main Event or his main roster debut at the Royal Rumble:
“Man, that’s a tough one because they’re equally as good because you have to think the Saturday Night’s Main Event was the very first one. And like this is this is the first time I’m on that big stage, you know,\ on that big platform. So I, you know, I was really glad that the crowd was rocking on my stuff. So I would have to say it’s the first one. Yeah. The second one, the Rumble debut, was more of a pleasant surprise. I didn’t think the Saudi crowd would be hip to The Ruler’s stuff. So shout out to the Saudi crowd, you know. I slept on them. I slept on the Saudi crowd. But yeah, they were there. They were there because when I was in Saudi, I was, you know, I was kind of in surprise, but not really a surprise because I thought it was going to be a surprise. Next thing I see, the WWE social media was like, ‘Femi is going to be in the Rumble.’ I was like, ‘Well, there goes the trip.’ But I’m there. I’m not doing anything. You know, there’s no planned uh meet and greets for me because like I was supposed to be a surprise. And then the one time I ended up leaving the hotel, you know, to just go out there, those people who saw me and recognized me, and you know, they did the chant, and I was like, ‘Oh, okay. Maybe I’ll be okay come Rumble night.’ So very pleasant surprise. Saudi, I apologize. You guys, you guys know what’s going on.”
On entering the Royal Rumble at #1:
“It’s always been my mentality that it doesn’t matter if it’s 500 at the PC or 80,000 at WrestleMania, the ring size is the same, the job is the same. You have to entertain the crowd, and you know, like I do, so I don’t get like thrown off by a big crowd or a bigger stage or anything like that. So NXT did a good job of you know preparing me for that moment. But it was just a really cool ordeal. I think what was cool about it was the fact that I’m entry number one. So I get my full entrance. Saudi is rocking with me. I know that, you know, along, you know, down the line in this Rumble, I’m going to be, you know, head-to-head with Brock [Lesnar], you know, so it just felt really good, you know, if it was a good pleasant surprise, a great moment for me personally.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
