I’ve been complaining about Sheamus getting such a huge push on this Monday’s three hour Raw, so let’s took at the WWE wrestler one WWE has pushed correctly. Kofi Kingston’s push has been set up and executed quite well. He has fans buying his push and is getting more over by the show.
Many consider Kingston’s push to have begun with the trashing of Randy Orton’s car (which we’ll get to momentarily), but it, in fact, began at Breaking Point in September. Before this, Kofi had gained some credibility by being so good at holding together even the most thrown together multi-man matches, but it was at Breaking Point that Kofi showed his first bit of star potential. Kofi here with Miz, who likewise has since been nearly untouchable, had a great match that didn’t steal the show.
There is a lot of value in the WWE to having wrestlers who understand their spot on the card and can exceed expectations from that spot while not taking away from the matches atop the card that fans paid to see. If one gets this skill properly, like Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero once did, you can steal the show in a different enough manner, without a ton of near-falls, and leave the crowd wanting more, still hot for the main event(s). Having this skill shows a good understanding of wrestling psychology, worthy of a push further up the card.
Since then, Kofi has lost the Intercontinental Title, but only after pinning the man who beat him for it once more to continue to look strong, then lost his accent and pretty much immediately revealed that he’s a great promo. This was the true revelation of his push. Few are the wrestlers in WWE who can really talk, and fewer still are those who can do it as a babyface. Of all the young talent of the past decade that has stuck, only John Cena and, to some lesser extent, Batista have really been able to talk as a babyface. Kofi joining that group certainly really made his push a lot more serious. Once the push became serious, when Randy Orton needed a challenger, Kofi was the one who could deliver the intensity on the mic to go with the destruction of Orton’s car.
Fire on the mic sets Kofi apart and helps make him a star, but his fire in the ring is what really makes him a force. Many fliers have trouble creating intense moments and using brawling in addition to aerial offense to stand out. On Raw at MSG, Kofi showed that he could absolutely pull off a convincing brawl with Randy Orton, then at Survivor Series, he effectively pulled off the sympathetic babyface routine, again without relying on his bread-and-butter flying maneuvers. Kingston’s ring work has proven not only appropriate, but versatile.
There are also several hidden factors that contribute to the Kingston push, all difficult to quantify. First is that Vince McMahon has learned the benefit of hitting different demographics from Rey Mysterio, who single handedly drew Smackdown a huge Hispanic audience. Since then, the WWE has tried several times to create a marketable black star, but failed. Bobby Lashley decided he’d rather be a prima donna then do MMA, then R-Truth turned out to have no actual talent, and MVP turned out to be a natural heel. Even ignoring racial demographics, so few in the WWE have panned out as new babyfaces with anywhere near the rounded repertoire of Kingston, he was in the perfect position to succeed. Where the WWE had failed so many times before, with Kofi, the WWE apparently hit the jackpot.
The final factor working in Kofi’s favor might or might not actually end up relevant. Kofi Kingston was trained by the late, great Killer Kowalski. Not only is Kowalski considered by WWE brass to be among the best workers ever, but he’s also absolutely beloved by his premier trainee, the man with the most political clout in the WWE, one Triple H. Kofi Kingston had such an abundance of skills (actually, much like the man he came from ECW with, CM Punk) he almost had to succeed. But a political connection like Triple H never hurt anyone’s push.
Kofi Kingston has found the perfect storm. First, he was trained in the right place, has the right babyface charisma, and made the WWE. Then, he showed he was a great, but intelligent wrestler, which allowed him to drop the accent and work on a real character with real promos. As he was showing himself capable of this, Randy Orton became the odd man out on the Raw WWE Title picture and needed a new babyface to work with. Working with Orton, Kofi got to show he could be a star and a real draw. That’s where we are now with Kofi- the cusp of greatness. Boom.
Comments