Kofi Kingston: Making The Case For A WWE World Title Reign
Kofi Kingston’s WWE resume is filled with success, but its time to give him a world title reign.
There’s something to say about longevity in the world of professional wrestling. This is an industry that’s been show to tear through many athletes at a much higher rate than creating stars. So when a wrestler sticks around for 10 years there’s something worth noting. Kofi Kingston is one such wrestler that has hit 10 years with the WWE in 2018. A wrestler, who has accomplished a lot, there’s still one thing that’s not on his resume: a heavyweight title reign.
In 10 years, Kofi has done nearly everything possible within the WWE ropes. During that time he is a four-time Intercontinental champion, three-time United States champion, and a combined seven-time tag team champion.
That’s an amazing list of accolades that many wrestlers will never dream of, let alone realize. He’s one title reign away from becoming the 18th wrestler to reach the status of Grand Slam champion; having won the Universal/Heavyweight, tag team, IC and US titles. It may seem like its long shot to occur, but a path to the coveted designation needs to be worked out.
With Kofi on the SmackDown brand, he’s in the best position to reach the main card status. Raw is dominated by the “larger than life” wrestlers like Brock Lesnar, Braun Strowman, Roman Reigns and others.
On SmackDown, “smaller” wrestlers are booked in a much more competitive fashion. It would be hard to envision Kingston competing against those men for the primary title. But switch out their names with AJ Styles, Sami Zayn, Dolph Ziggler, Kevin Owens or Shinsuke Nakamura, and that dynamic suddenly changes.
First things first, this isn’t a call to split up the New Day. That trio is one of the most over groups in the WWE. What started as another poor, racially-stereotypical gimmick has been transformed into one of the most entertaining groups in the industry today.
Much of that is due to the creativity of Kingston, Xavier Woods and Big E. Keeping them together while elevating Kingston to the main event benefits all three of them at the same time. In the past a big knock against Kofi is that his characters get stale over time, but the New Day has helped change in a way that potentially saved his career.
With WrestleMania season set in stone with Nakamura facing Styles for the title, there’s no need to change that narrative. But imagine a storyline after Mania in which Kingston becomes the top contender through a tournament or some other opportunity that he wins with the assistance of his partners. Kingston has shown that he can go in the ring with nearly anyone, and the idea of him in big matches with the names listed at the top should excite any wrestling fan.
Next: Jackie Moore is a trailblazer in wrestling
It’s been nearly seven years since Mark Henry was the World Heavyweight champion. Ghanaian-born Kingston should be provided the opportunity to include his name on the short list of black men to hold a world title (not the primary world title). With the popularity of the New Day, this angle could occur and hopefully it hits while this team still has cache with the WWE fan base.