WWE: 5 reasons why Kofi Kingston was the best wrestler of the 2010’s
4. Dominance in the mid card scene
In addition to winning the tag titles nine times in the last decade and a WWE Championship, Kingston dominated WWE’s mid card scene. He won the United States Championship twice and the Intercontinental Title three times in the last 10 years, which is pretty insane considering he pretty much stopped competing for mid card titles when The New Day formed in 2014.
So basically, despite primarily not competing for singles titles for more than half the decade, Kingston ended up with six singles titles. Not bad, right?
He had some gems for the US and IC Title, too, putting in the hard work to maintain the prestige of both mid-card titles. Kingston had some great matches with Dolph Ziggler and The Miz in the early 2010’s. And if you REALLY want to watch a hidden gem, go look up his Apr. 30, 2013 US Title match against Cesaro on Main Event. Don’t hold me to this, but it might be the greatest match in Main Event history. It’s absolutely fantastic from a story-telling and athletic standpoint. (Because it’s Kofi and Cesaro…duh!)
And yeah, if you want to go on a mid-card nostalgia trip, go watch back some of those Kofi and Dolph matches in 2011 and 2012. That’s called “stealing the show” in the mid card.
Again, it’s super easy to overlook the mid card, but that’s where all the hard work is done in keeping a show together. Kingston was a flat-out workhorse in WWE’s mid card scene from 2011 to 2014, and it’s really too bad WWE didn’t give as much of a spotlight to those guys at the time. Otherwise, there’d be even more buzz for Kingston’s singles work.