This is an ongoing series where I’ll be checking in with some fond memories of those wrestlers who got over but never got to the top. A mini-celebration of some favorite midcard babyfaces that we loved but didn’t love in the main event. We continue this series with The Jamaican Sensation, Kofi Kingston.
How They Got Their Start
Born in Ghana, Kofi Nahaje Sarkodie-Mensa immigrated to the United States as a baby and attended Boston College. (Go Eagles! Boo Terriers!) He made his official wrestling debut in February of 2006, bounced around the New England indies for a hot minute and then signed a developmental deal with WWE in September of 2006, which has to be some sort of land speed record for “start wrestling and get signed by the biggest company in the world.” Lio Rush? Pshaw.
Here he is cutting one of his earliest promos for Massachusetts’ own Chaotic Wrestling.
And here is a pre-dreadlocked Kofi wrestling one of his last matches on the indies before heading to WWE developmental in Georgia-based Deep South Wrestling. His signing must have already happened at the time, because the Gordie Solie sound-alike announcer mentions it on good authority before the bell has even rung.
Even with this Zapruder-quality footage, it is clear that Kofi has an innate feel for professional wrestling, and his athletic gifts are so apparent that he’s making this previously-unknown Hanson brother [citation needed] look like Rhyno. Kofi’s slick escape here from an attempted Pedigree is so simple and beautiful I’m astonished that Hunter hasn’t had this clip buried harder then Brian Henson clipping Peter Jackson’s nuts for Meet The Feebles.
Before he moved to Florida Championship Wrestling in June 2007, he had already worked live events and dark matches on Raw, defeating Shelton Benjamin and Val Venis, because 2007 was a weird time.
How I First Became Aware Of Him
Kofi made his debut on January 22, 2008 for the ECW brand and won a glorified squash match against David Owens, who embarasses the entire Tarheel State by looking like a Mini-Me Tomko and not being able to work better than a Mystery Hanson Brother [citation needed].
This is where I make a confession to you, my dear reader. The very first two things I noticed about Kofi were a) my disappointment that WWE would never make that incredibly sweet track suit available for purchase to the general public, and b) that Kofi immediately had the best entrance music in the history of professional wrestling, Non-Joey Janela Midnight Express Division.
I have listened to that song more times than I can count. Literally, hundreds and hundreds of times. That song is my JAM.
Once major record labels started saying, “Wait … what?” and professional wrestling had to transition to original/in-house developed music, major league professional wrestling themes took a brutal turn for the worse. An unlistenable, unyielding wave of nu-metal crested and crashed onto the WWE like a garbage tsunami that is only slightly worse than the actual state of our oceans. Google “garbage island ocean” or “yellow death cloud china sea” if you want some SEO-related bummer times for Thanksgiving.
“S.O.S.” is the only song you could slip into a Spotify mix for your friends and not have them immediately scrunch their nose and have them say, “Is this some of ‘that’ music you listen to?” It sounds like it belongs on the radio. It sounds like it has a beginning, middle and end. It’s catchy and fun and oh god I’m going to listen to it again right now. It’s that good.
Look, I’m not going to argue with you about nWo themes or split hairs about whether “Cult Of Personality” counts or not, and for those of you raising your hands about Bobby Roode, I feel you because I like Queen too, but I can’t dance to it so I’m going to give it a 4/5. Those of you skipping the rest of the article to comment below will just have to live with being on the wrong side of history. I will push for Collie Buddz to be in the Hall of Fame until I draw my dying breath.
Why I Stopped Seeing Him
We lost track of the Dreadlocked Dynamo somewhere between here:
And here:
This article would have been up over a month ago, but I had to do a huge dive into the darkest recesses of YouTube to find a WWE video of Triple H burying someone. My apologies. Oh, how was Survivor Series the other night? Did I miss anything?
What Are They Doing Now?
Finally, the WWE came to their senses, put New Kofi back into a sweet-ass red track suit in a series of vignettes over the course of a few weeks, and let him do his thing. Yep. The New Day gimmick was smooth sailing from day one, I tell you. No weird racial overtones from Vince McMahon this time. No, sir.
In all seriousness, Kofi has been one of those most talented, underrated and underused roster members in WWE for almost the entirety of his decade-long run, and I’m so over the moon about his current round of success that I’m breaking my unofficial “no currently active wrestlers for Midcard Faces articles” rule. I would have been beyond furious if the entirety of his career had been Royal Rumble spots you can fit into a GIF. Hey, Kofi caving The Miz’s head in is just gravy as far as I’m concerned. Everything that Miz has done since he came back has been gold, Jerry! Gold, I tell ya!
Here is Kofi doing the Eddie Guerrero Chair Spot with a trombone. Even his heel shit is adorable.
When you survived an endless loop of Dolph Ziggler 50/50 booking matches to become the longest running tag team champion in WWE history and part of one of the best factions of the last decade, you sir are a fantastic Midcard Face.
