Credit: WWE.com
Today I want to double entendre on folk. In one sense I want to follow up on the last thing I wrote and I want to talk about the follow up to same. You see, in life one of the worst things can be getting what you wished for. For wrestling marks you tend to not see more than five seconds in front of your face when you're fantasy booking. As I type this sentence I do not have one single dream Kofi Kingston match. I can't imagine someone having a dream to see Kofi Kingston wrestle someone. I want to restate what I said last time, I don't hate that dude or wish he wouldn't come up. Good for him. It's happening. There is nothing I can do about that. What I want to point out to you is, you will not feel that it was worth if he wins the belt and then poof, 2 months later he is a former champion who will never win the championship again.
A lot of people are comparing Kofi Kingston to Daniel Bryan circa 2014. The thing is there, Daniel Bryan was a much better worker and I can easily go back to then and think of all the potential opponents for him. I can think NOW of all the Daniel Bryan matches I want to see. I want to see a big Daniel Bryan v Shinsuke Nakamura match built properly and paid off likewise. I would like to see Finn Balor v Daniel Bryan. I want Seth Rollins v Daniel Bryan. I could do this for a while. The worst thing about how they followed up his big win at WrestleMania XXX was his first feud (and last feud because of the injury)............. was Kane. Mayor Kane. Ugh. I remember fans were talking about how they were making Bryan look weak because he was constantly running from Kane who was presented as a horror movie character. The thing I thought then, and now, is that if Bryan no sold the fear factor of Kane being a monster, and beat his ass before the match... is that you kill the payoff of Bryan whipping his ass in the match. I think it would have been a much better follow-up if they would have had him feud with HHH or Batista or someone like that in the aftermath of Mania as opposed to a C+ player like Kane. When I think about Kofi and SmackDown's roster, let's assume.... just for a moment that he wins the belt and defends against Bryan in the obligatory rematch. They're gonna follow it up with some bull. He gonna wrestle Mustafa... I mean Ali. They took the Mustafa because it's too much to call him Mustafa Ali. I will not care one iota about that. That will not be a main event worthy match for me.
Some wrestlers mean more than the belt. The belt means more than most of the wrestlers. Kofi Kingston does not mean more than the WWE championship and people are about to be mad when Roman Reigns is main eventing pay per views again over whatever Seth Rollins and Kofi Kingston are doing post Mania. It will be said in many blogs and YouTube videos "The WWE championship feels like a midcard belt" BECAUSE THEY GAVE THE BELT TO A MIDCARDER YOU MARKS. And again, I make the distinction that Kofi is not on Seth Rollins' level because I would love to see Seth Rollins wrestle Finn Balor again over the red belt. I want to see Rollins v Nakamura. Rollins v AJ Styles. Rollins v Bryan. Rollins v Samoa Joe. Again I could do that for a while. Again, I do not have ONE dream Kofi Kingston match. When the proprietor of this great website posts the link to this article I want you marks to do me a favor and reply to it with matches you would like to see Kofi contend for the "most coveted prize in all of sports entertainment" (except that it isn't on Raw and therefore is already less important even though it has that lineage and history going back to the 60s)
I bet you money you are about to tell me that you want to see a gang of midcard level guys fight over a world title on the B show.
A big problem in wrestling right now is that there are no real credible heels. WWE beats the piss out of its heels so often and makes them ALL look like chicken excrements as though there aren't variations on the heel theme. Vince McMahon is the most relevant and powerful heel still and this is bad because he is super old and won't wrestle matches. So, having Kofi Kingston beat Vince isn't gonna happen. But, who are the heels that Vince is gonna have beat Kofi down and take the belt from him? Idk. The way to get babyfaces over is to get heels over as people that folk want to see lose. These days marks love all the heels. Can't WAIT to turn them babyface so they are no longer chanting and singing along ironically. How do you REALLY get a face over when no one hates the guys they're working with? This will work against Kofi because, once he is the world champion you PROBABLY shouldn't be presenting your world champion as an underdog. They probably will because Vince is a moron sometimes. Ok MOST of the time. I will watch you complain on social media that they're making him look weak when heels get heat on him.
I needed to start a whole new paragraph for this.
You marks need to stop complaining that when a wrestler gets beat up by multiple people or loses to shenanigans that it makes him look weak. What is weak about one man getting beat on by two or more men? The real weakness is the men who needed help to beat on the one. And this goes back to how it is impossible for heels to get heat nowadays. Back in the day when you had a guy back off and get intentionally disqualified or counted out you would get mad because you wanted to see him get beat up and the beatdown was coming and he ran from it... that bastard! Nowadays you take to your twitter to tweet about how that is bad booking, having the heel do something that should put the heat on him but you are SOOOOOOOOOO SMAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRT that you see through that to know they didn't want to pay off the entire feud by having the face definitively beat the heel down in that match and stretch it out and so you feel the pay per views are supposed to always have clear winners and losers. And that IS a thing. It shouldn't be. You should just boo the heel. Not the booker for the finish. Now. I'll grant you this, WWE does the same finishes too much.
When Jinder Mahal was the latest midcarder who got a world championship his actual work and level in the company did not elicit, his reign was trash because they literally did the same finish in 90+% of his matches. He would have his cruiserweights interfere and then he would hit his finish. There are so many different ways they could have worked that. They could have used foreign objects, distracted the referee and done some shenanigans, intentional dqs, countouts, mix it up so that the heat rightly goes on the heels and not the predictable booking of "oh it's a Jinder Mahal championship match, the midgets will interfere and he will win". I hope when Kofi wins the belt he isn't selling most of the match and then winning with a roll up because that will be weak and a waste of all our time.
Kofi Kingston is getting the belt at WrestleMania. I am not unhappy about this despite what you may think. I ain't happy either. I'm just mad meh about it, because I predict that he won't have the belt long and he won't do anything memorable as champion and then, what will have been the whole point of all that buildup? The payoff is one thing, but even more important... is the follow up.