Kofi Kingston Says He Originally Avoided A Ghanaian Character To Be Different To Prince Nana
Kofi has revealed why his WWE character was initially billed as Jamaican rather than Ghanaian.
Kofi Kingston first appeared on WWE TV in 2008, as part of the ECW brand, he was announced as hailing from Jamaica and spoke with an accent from the Caribbean island. This continued into his Raw debut and his first run with the Intercontinental and United States Championships. Kingston would go on to drop the Jamaican elements of his character in late 2009, considering his lack of Jamaican ancestry, and be announced as being from his country of birth, Ghana. Many fans wondered why there was the initial disparity, but Kofi has now explained what wrestler influenced this decision.
Speaking with TMZ, Kofi explained how his new ally in AEW, Prince Nana, already being billed from Ghana led to him tweaking his own presentation.
“When I first debuted as an on-screen character, I was Kofi Kingston from Kingston, Jamaica. People on MySpace were really mad at me. Jamaicans were mad at me. And then Ghanaians were also mad at me because I wasn’t representing. If your name is Kofi, you’re from Ghana. ‘How come you’re representing Jamaica? You don’t want our culture?’ One of the big reasons that I went away from a Ghanaian character was because Prince Nana was already doing it in ROH. I was like, ‘I don’t want to just come out and be like another guy. I got to do something different that hasn’t been done.’“
-Kofi
Kofi went on to explain how exciting it was to now work with Prince Nana for the classic elimination save spot in the Trios Roulette Royale.
“He and I have crossed paths a little bit throughout the duration of my career, so to have it come around and to have him be involved in an elimination spot and actually have it work… it was really cool. He’s been really awesome. Just a great personality. Very knowledgable about the business. I think underrated in a lot of different ways. Really cool to be alongside him. It’s just crazy how everything always comes back around.”
-Kofi
After embracing his Ghanaian identity on WWE TV, Kofi would continue to have a fruitful career in the company, eventually forming The New Day alongside Big E & Xavier Woods (now Austin Creed). Kofi would hold major WWE tag team gold 12 times with the group, as well as a reign with the NXT Tag Team Championships. The group would also support and lead Kofi to his infamous WWE Championship win at WrestleMania 35.
Kofi and Creed departed WWE earlier this year, citing a “more than 50%” pay cut as the main factor for this decision. They would go on to sign with AEW less than 24 hours before their emphatic debut at AEW All-In: London. You can read more about that here.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on both Kofi’s time with WWE and his recent move to AEW as soon as we hear more.
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