For Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar, SummerSlam must prove WWE's gamble was worth it

Here's a fact that might come up this weekend: did you know 2025 was the first year in more than two decades that WWE had no Hell in a Cell match? The iconic structure has long been a fixture in the WWE calendar — even carrying its own PLE for more than a decade — serving as the ultimate score-settler for the most explosive of feuds. Then last year, it was placed on hiatus.

You can understand why they chose to give it a rest. The last time we saw a Hell in a Cell match was the brutal slobberknocker between CM Punk and Drew McIntyre at Bad Blood 2024 , perhaps the last great personal vendetta we've seen on WWE programming. After a match reaches those levels of violence, it makes sense to let the dust settle and the impact speak for itself.

Now the 20-foot structure is coming back out of storage, chosen by Triple H as the perfect way to settle the score between Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar at WWE SummerSlam. To be fair, the Femi-Lesnar feud hasn't quite had the emotional ferocity of Punk-McIntyre. But it has still been the best thing on WWE television in recent months, certainly when compared to the lackluster build for Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins.

There's another factor at play here, too: WWE knows it need to up the stakes for the final part of this trilogy. After all, it was the company's decision to keep this feud running beyond WrestleMania . What happens inside that chain-link structure on Saturday will decide whether that was a foolish call or not.

Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi's trilogy match goes down Saturday at WWE SummerSlam. WWE via Getty Images

I've made my views on that clear. To me, Oba Femi's triumph over Lesnar at WrestleMania 42 was the closest WWE has come this year to capturing lightning in a bottle. It was the sort of match that was destined to be talked about for years to come. To paraphrase George H. W. Bush's famous line from "The Simpsons," the match achieved everything it had set out to do, meaning there was no need for a second one.

So why did we get a rematch? As is usually the case with WWE, commercial factors triumphed over creative ones. When you have 50,000 overpriced seats to shift for SummerSlam, there's no way you can risk leaving your most successful feud off the card. If that means bringing Lesnar back from "retirement" to ruin Femi's unbeaten streak at Clash in Italy , then so be it.

In fairness, WWE has done a competent job in selling the notion of Hell in a Cell as the final destination for this feud. On Monday, they brought the cell out in Los Angeles for the final face-to-face segment between Femi and Lesnar. However cynical you feel about the rest of the product right now, it was hard not to get tingles watching that thing lowered from the rafters accompanied by its own little theme music.

The Cell ⛓️ pic.twitter.com/paQuAB9oCg

— WWE (@WWE) July 28, 2026

They've made good use of Lesnar's history too, reminding us about his unbeaten record in Hell in a Cell matches, as well as his achievements in another chain-link structure with a reputation for high-stakes violence (what Paul Heyman now calls "The Brocktagon"). That's helped build Lesnar up again as a suitably scary obstacle for a young competitor looking to earn his place in history.

For all the hype, though, there are still outstanding questions. Take Lesnar, for example. His terrifying combat sports pedigree doesn't change the fact that his past three pro-wrestling matches clocked in at less than nine minutes each. Whatever "The Beast" has planned for this weekend needs to be a lot less like his half-baked battle with John Cena and more like his bombastic Last Man Standing match from SummerSlam back in 2022 .

There are questions for Femi too. The former NXT champion has been dominant since his call-up to the main roster, but his big match experience isn't exactly extensive. Indeed, one of the more surprising bits in season three of Netflix's "WWE Unreal" was hearing Bruce Pritchard express doubts about Femi's readiness. We'll all be hoping that Pritchard isn't proven right this weekend.

Because these two will need need fireworks to make this work. Ultimately, most Hell in a Cell matches live or die on whether they deliver that one bombshell moment. Last time around, it was the wince-inducing moment when McIntyre flopped spine-first onto the toolbox. In 2022, it was Cody Rhodes pulling back his jacket to show us that massive pectoral tear — probably the first big Hell in a Cell moment to happen before the match had even started. Then there's the granddaddy of them all: Mick Foley's death-defying fall from 1998 that has been immortalized in every Hell in a Cell package since then.

Obviously, no one will be expecting to see Femi doing anything that crazy. But he still needs to give us something that can justify the occasion this weekend. If there isn't a clip that's getting shared like crazy on social media afterward — and not just on the WWE accounts — then you can probably deduce that the gambit has failed. Though surely you have to assume everyone involved has something up their sleeves for the return of Hell in a Cell — and the closing chapter of the Femi-Lesnar feud.

We've had the build-up and the exchanges of insults. We've had the hype packages and the breathless previews from the commentary desk. We've had the incongruous UFC-style weigh-in to kick off this week's "Raw." On Saturday, we will find out whether the whole thing has been worthwhile.

For the sake of Oba Femi, I really hope that it will be.

Indexed and credited by AIPROPX. Originating outlet: Yahoo Sports. Open at source →