His return to WWE from a six-month injury layoff at Sunday Night’s Main Event instantly breathed life back into The Vision stable. The next night on Raw, a testy moment from the aftermath of his group’s second destruction of Oba Femi in as many nights caused many an argument online.
Not that you asked, but while I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of wrestler etiquette*, I don’t think either man did anything wrong on Monday night. Going back to SNME, I’d admired the way Femi continued to fight throughout The Vision’s assaults in Atlanta. This read like more of the same from him, with a little logically added spice. Because Reed would want to make a statement by putting his foot on the Beast-Slaying King of the Ring, and The Ruler wouldn’t want to allow him to make that statement unless he was dead or unconscious.
That the logic works for their characters and the men behind those characters? That’s pro wrestling magic right there, baby.
Anyway, that’s not what you came here for. That would be the Bronson Reed quote in the headline. It comes from his appearance on Raw Recap: WWE Now with Sam Roberts and Megan Morant. Reed isn’t addressing the foot-swipe, at least not directly. Roberts tees this mini-promo up by “asking” if the big man could have imagined a better way to return than taking down the “unbeatable” Femi.
“I am the man that beats the unbeatable people. So Oba Femi being the very top of the mountain at the moment, I’m very happy to climb up that mountain than stay down at the bottom and die. I’d rather [die trying] climbing the mountain.
“If you go back and you look at Bronson Reed lore — I’ll say it, I don’t care where we are. I beat [Kazuchika] Okada in Japan. He was the unbeatable man at the time. I beat him. Roman Reigns, unbeatable. No one can beat him. I beat him. Now, we are in the era of Oba Femi, he’s unbeatable. Just wait until I beat him.”
It’s a fantastic answer, reminding us that Jonah Rock was taking out fools with a Death Drop Driver in New Japan and his native Australia long before Big Bronson Reed was Tsunami-ing fools on NXT and Raw. It also only makes me more excited for a Reed/Femi clash, regardless of who was right or wrong in that viral clip from Monday night.
Let us know your latest thoughts on the Bronson Reed/Oba Femi flap, or a match or feud between them, in the comments below.
* I, like most writers, journalists, and reasonable people I know, dispute the notion that “if you’ve never played the game/made the art, you shouldn’t critique or comment on it”. But I do think it’s fair to write from my perspective as an audience member and/or consumer with my experience and the knowledge I’ve gained as a fan. But I know from the jobs and careers I’ve been involved in that each of those has its own culture, and it’s often difficult to make judgments about incidents that happen in those jobs and careers without having been a part of their cultures. So with the caveat that I’m occasionally a hypocrite, that’s why I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of wrestler etiquette.
