WWE: Is Brock Lesnar the ideal candidate to dethrone Kofi Kingston?

This week, Friday Night SmackDown will debut live on Fox at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. Its main event will feature Kofi Kingston defending his WWE Championship against Brock Lesnar.

Most WWE fans evidently foresee Kingston’s six-month title reign ending at the hands of The Beast Incarnate and thereby lead many of them to speculate: Is Brock Lesnar the ideal candidate to dethrone Kofi Kingston?

Mark Justice and Kevin Parvizi, two of Daily DDT’s beloved contributors, will tackle this question and pontificate their opposing viewpoints in a new series called ‘Debate The Mark.’

Without further ado, here is their riveting debate on this issue, with Mark taking the side of pro-Brock, and Kevin taking the side of anti-Brock.

Mark Justice: Yes, unlike many superstars on the roster, Brock Lesnar is an established superstar and an incomparable box office attraction. Whenever the WWE puts a championship on him, the championship automatically becomes more prestigious than when it’s possessed by his predecessor.

Indeed, Kofi Kingston was a great WWE Champion, and had upbeat storylines during his title reign. However, he didn’t main event a single PPV as WWE Champion, and was likely never seen as a threatening champion in the eyes of the common viewer.

In fact, the WWE Championship has not main evented a WWE PPV in a very long time. With SmackDown Live moving to Fox and supposedly wanting the show to be more sports-oriented, Brock Lesnar is the ideal superstar to bring the WWE Championship back to the main event scene.

Unfortunately, Kingston doesn’t live up to the description of such a ‘box office attraction’ just yet. With Kingston as WWE Champion, it continually feels like a Cinderella story and nothing more. But Fox likely does NOT want a ‘Cinderella’ story. Fox wants ‘Beauty and the Beast!’

Fox would fundamentally see ‘beauty’ in their flagship show of SmackDown Live with the ‘Beast’ Incarnate as WWE Champion.

As evidenced by his Universal Championship reigns, Lesnar would be a champion who looks unbeatable, and probably draws in plenty of viewers to their product, just like the New England Patriots do in NFL Football and the New York Yankees do in MLB Baseball.

With Lesnar as WWE Champion, the championship is undoubtedly taken more seriously.

It thereby makes more ‘business sense’ to put the title on him more than anyone else on the roster so that the WWE Championship can attain its main event caliber once again with the most believable champion on a more sports-oriented show.

Kevin Parvizi: I agree with you on Brock Lesnar being a great box-office attraction and someone FOX would value highly, and that’s essentially why he’s going to win the championship on Friday no matter what happens.

But was it the IDEAL option for Lesnar to dethrone Kofi Kingston? I don’t think so.

And I’m not going to sit here and say it’s a bad option, because there’s nothing wrong with Kingston losing the title to the most strongly-booked wrestler in WWE. There’s also nothing wrong with FOX wanting the draw that Lesnar would provide, given their desire for cross-promotion and a sports-centric show. (After all, Lesnar is a former NFL player and UFC champion.)

The ideal option would have been someone Kingston could “pass the torch to”. He’s already been in grueling, emotional feuds with Kevin Owens and Randy Orton. Even the Dolph Ziggler feud had a personal angle, with Ziggler ranting how “it should have been him” to climb the summit at WrestleMania 35.

And the ideal “passing of the torch” option for Kingston would have been Ali. Although Kingston is in his first world title reign, he’s been wrestling for over a decade. and is legitimately one of the top performers of his era. Beating him would be a massive deal for an up-and-coming star, and it would be fitting for Kingston to have lost a hard-fought match to someone he respects.

Someone he considers a close friend.

Someone like Ali.

Since debuting on the main roster in December, Ali has shown exactly why he quickly became a fan favorite on 205 Live. Ali is the rare performer who can get an entire audience by his side in just one match.

Another wrestler with this special ability? Kofi Kingston.

The Ali/Kingston story from earlier this year has yet to conclude in satisfying fashion, and nothing would have been more heart-warming than seeing Ali prove that, he too, is world championship material. The match would have been fast-paced, emotional, yet respectful between the two babyfaces.

And the sweetest part? Kingston would pass the torch to a wrestler early in his career, doing what Randy Orton didn’t do for him all those years ago; helping a young, underrepresented performer in wrestling entrench themselves in the main event scene without having to “pay their dues” for a decade.