Kevin Nash thinks WWE has a problem on its hands with the Oba Femi open challenge on WWE Monday Night Raw, and on episode 200 of Kliq This he laid out what he would do differently than the framing he heard on Busted Open Radio.
Sean Oliver brought up Femi’s open challenge angle and the question of how to keep it from going stale. Nash had a fix.
“Make it a true open challenge. Have people outside the federation come in and work against them,” Nash said. “I’m coming in on one day, sign over an injury waiver. They f—- around and don’t do the job, they don’t get paid, and just have them go through some people.”
Then Nash went after the framing he had heard from Dave LaGreca and Bully Ray earlier in the week.
“I listened to Busted Open this week, and I was listening to Dave and Bully, and they were talking about this. They went into length about it. Dave was very adamant about there like nobody getting any offense on Femi,” Nash said. “We sat before the show started and watched Ricky Starks, who’s six foot, 190 pounds, beat him in the middle with a flying off the rope DDT. So he’s already been beaten in NXT by a 200 pound guy, and he sells for him. So you can’t, you can’t erase that. It’s out.”
Nash was referencing the WWE NXT No Mercy match in September 2025, where Ricky Saints (formerly known as Ricky Starks in AEW) defeated Femi for the NXT Championship before Femi reclaimed it at NXT Deadline that December.
Nash then drew the comparison Bully Ray and LaGreca had made between Femi and Bill Goldberg, but pushed back on the idea that Femi can be booked the same way.
“There are similarities to him and Bill Goldberg. He’s a shot putter. Bill was a pro football defensive end. There is a huge difference in athleticism. Bill was absolutely laboratory rat ready to go for that position. Bill was so explosive. He was so God awfully strong,” Nash said. “And that 20 foot ring, when you’re talking about taking a spear, there was no chance of Bill hurting himself. Bill hits you with that spear, Bill was 300 f—-ing pounds, or damn near close to it.”
Nash said the Femi storyline already has to account for the loss to Saints.
“You’ve already established on your program and in the wrestling universe that this guy has wrestled and sold,” Nash said.
“I don’t think it would have worked if you would have said Bill’s one and oh after beating Hugh Morris, when 35 percent of your viewing crowd said, ‘No, I watched him get beat by Starks.’ So you’ve already, but I don’t know if Bubba and Dave didn’t realize that,” Nash said.
Nash referenced Femi’s recent match with Rusev as the kind of formula that could work, with a veteran who can guide a green talent.
“He’s not, though there are similarities to him and Bill Goldberg. Rusev can go like he’s a good hand, and it kind of was a cluster f—- because Oba’s green,” Nash said. “It was almost an identical Goldberg Steven Regal match when they told him, go out and put in eight matches to Regal. Regal, who can have a match with a f—-ing broom, went out there.”
Nash also described the kind of in-ring story Femi can tell with smaller opponents.
“You take that impact, you catch you get your senses, and before he can come and grab you, you roll to the floor,” Nash said.
Femi vacated the WWE NXT Championship after his main roster call-up at the 2026 Royal Rumble and is currently undefeated on WWE Monday Night Raw, where his most notable win was over Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 42. Femi launched the open challenge after squashing Grayson Waller on the April 27 Raw and ran his first open challenge match against Otis on the May 4 Backlash go-home show.
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