7 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE NXT: New Year's Evil (Results & Review - 2 Jan)

5. Breaking Out

Oba Femi
WWE.com

Oba Femi has just 20 matches to his name, but he’s definitely got something.

And Tuesday night at New Year’s Evil, Femi got something else: he won the NXT Breakout Tournament and earned a contract to challenge for any title. Femi knocked off a game Riley Osborne in a decent match that stayed within its means, with Oba working a bearhug and mixing in a backbreaker while Osborne relied on stick-and-move tactics and high-flying attacks to stay in the fight.

While Femi did muff a sell of a headscissors, he still did a nice job and showed some explosiveness at the end with a Snake Eyes, backdrop toss and powerbomb to put Riley down and win the contract.

It’s early, but it’s safe to say NXT could have something here. And kudos to booking a smart David versus Goliath finals with the more experienced Osborne keeping things on track.

Advertisement
In this post: 
Ups & Downs
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.