KofiMania: Explained

Written by: Laurie Blake

There’s a lot of talk in WWE about the proverbial brass ring. 

Of an opportunity left dangling, temptingly within reach, if only you were to dare enough to stretch out your arm and grasp it firmly in one hand. 

And then suddenly you’d be on the ladder straight to the top, have something in hand more valuable than the money in the bank contract, no longer waiting for the push but now flying forward, the very top spot coming ever closer as you continue your unfaltering inertia.

But if you ask wrestlers like Rusev, or Miro as he goes by in AEW, you realise that in the way of that brass ring is a glass ceiling and this isn’t made out of sugar glass-like barbershop windows are.

But this is the story of someone who bust through and grabbed the brass ring, a tale of a hard-working everyman who refused to be pigeon-holed, someone born aloft on a wave of fan support and unicorn wings.

Though what goes up, must come down and that’s all part of this underdog icarus story. A story that made history in a company traditionally slow to change and perhaps as we’ll find out, not all the way there yet.

This is KofiMania Explained.

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Heading into WrestleMania season in 2019 there was nothing to suggest Kofi Kingston of all people would be vying for the WWE Championship come the showcase of the immortals.

The New Day had failed to win the Smackdown tag straps from The Bar at TLC and all been eliminated during the course of the Royal Rumble.

I think it’s safe to say that as far as most fans and definitely WWE were concerned Kingston was a mid-carder for life.

Kingston’s WWE career started with a developmental deal in 2006, he was assigned to Deep South Wrestling and sister-promotion Ohio Valley before moving over to Florida Championship Wrestling when that started in June 2007.

All the while sporting a faux-Jamaican accent picked up after being told in training that Vince was really into characters and listening to a Damian Marley CD. 

And when he debuted for the ECW brand in early 2008 he was touted as the first Jamaican superstar to wrestle for WWE, he wasn’t he doesn’t have any Jamaican heritage, but he is the first African-born WWE superstar with Ghanaian roots.

This Jerfaican was rumbled after dropping the accent after just over a year on Raw and was eventually billed from Ghana.

And while his Marley-mimicry was less than successful, Kofi otherwise has been very productive during his WWE tenure: accruing a championship haul that includes four intercontinental title runs, 3 US championships, and 13 different tag team title reigns, including a record 10 with the New Day.

But that brass ring, the very pinnacle of WWE, remained sealed off until a chance occurrence showed a crack in the glass ceiling.

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• kofimania
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