Obvious competition among papers? On the contrary (7)
I believe the answer is:
evident
'obvious' is the definition.
(similar in meaning)
'competition among papers? on the contrary' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'papers?' could be 'id' (short for identification papers) and 'id' is located in the answer.
'competition' could be 'event' (sporting event) and 'event' is located in the leftover letters.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for evident that I've seen before include "Quite obvious, manifest" , "Clearly discernible" , "Readily apparent" , "Quite obvious, easy to see" , "Patent" .)