WWE: KofiMania hit a roadblock, but it’s not dead
Last night, Kofi Kingston withstood the test of time in his Gauntlet Match to earn himself a shot at the WWE Championship at WrestleMania.
Kofi Kingston defeated not one, not two, not three, not even four WWE Superstars. He successfully defeated The Bar (pinned them both, by the way), Erick Rowan, Samoa Joe and Randy Orton over the course of nearly an hour’s worth of SmackDown Live programming. KofiMania is alive and well!
Except, it’s not. Vince McMahon came out at the last minute and told Kofi that he had one last opponent in Daniel Bryan. Five minutes later, Bryan beat Kofi clean with a Knee Plus.
Well, so much for KofiMania.
Emotions were high last night. In fact, for a lot of viewers, those last ten minutes of SmackDown were probably the most stressful minutes of SmackDown Live they’ve ever seen. As soon as Kofi won his Gauntlet match while ten minutes of air time remained, many of us were biting our fingernails in anticipation knowing full well that shenanigans were afoot. Alas, the shenanigans delivered and boy, did it hurt to witness.
It didn’t take long before many KofiMania supporters were vocal about the frustration regarding what appeared to be the finale of Kofi’s road to WrestleMania. I’ll admit, had I wrote this up immediately after SmackDown went off the air, you would have read a very, very different article with me including many angry, unkind words directed at everyone from Vince McMahon to the creative staff. Now that I’ve had a day to sleep on it, I can talk about this with more of a rational mindset.
First things first, we can all rest assured that KofiMania is not dead.
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WWE may be full of fools, but the company as a whole isn’t foolish. Seeing the entire roster rally behind Kofi in his support last night was enough to tell us that WWE understand how badly the WWE Universe wants to see Kofi get his moment at WrestleMania. I can almost guarantee that Kofi will get his shot at the title at Mania. WWE is just giving us – and Kofi’s character – a long, grueling, tortuous road to the big stage.
Seeing him lose clean to Bryan was merely another layer to the storyline; something to make us tune in for next week. Whether this is the appropriate storyline WWE should be heading for is up for debate. That’s the biggest issue a lot of people are having with this storyline. The closer we get to Mania and the more obstacles WWE are putting in front of Kofi Kingston, the more that it seems like story is becoming an overcomplicated and overbooked mess. Last night, I was quick to say the exact same thing. Until I realized that this so-called “mess” is working.
Last night, when SmackDown went off the air, I was ready to burst into a full rage. I was going to write up the angriest opinion article that I could muster. Me and my buddy, Mark, fully planned to march down to Connecticut and hold a strike in front of WWE Towers until WrestleMania was officially rebranded as KofiMania. Then I realized that Mark didn’t exist and the only Mark in my presence was the Mark staring at me in the mirror.
As much as I want to criticize WWE for their booking, the fact of the matter is that if they got me and so many other fans riled up so easily after that finish, they must be doing something right. In the wake of Fastlane, I wrote up an article echoing a similar sentiment and despite realizing so many weeks ago that seeing Kofi continually get screwed only makes us want to see him win the big one even more, WWE still made a fool out of me. Why? Because they are screwing him over so spectacularly.
I can’t remember the last time a WWE storyline – or any wrestling storyline for that matter – ever got me this riled up and emotionally invested. Whatever WWE is trying to do with the Kofi storyline, they need to keep doing it until Apr. 7 rolls around.
Gallows and Anderson were wasted in WWE. dark. Next
After these recent developments, I have no idea how Kofi is going to get his title match at WrestleMania, but mark my words, he is going to get that title match.