Kofi Kingston Wins WWE Championship at WrestleMania
Kofi Kingston won his first WWE Title over Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35.
Kofi Kingston is the new WWE Champion!
Kingston defeated Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35 to win his first WWE Championship after 12 years in the company. After the victory, Kingston celebrated in the ring with his New Day teammates — Big E and Xavier Woods — as well as two sons.
For Kingston, the win was a crowning moment in his WWE career. It’s crazy the ride Kofi has been on over the last two months, considering he wasn’t even supposed to be in this match.
If you believe the reports, Kevin Owens was scheduled to face Bryan at WrestleMania 35 this year, but those plans changed quickly when Kingston was a last-minute replacement at Elimination Chamber and received a groundswell of crowd support in the building and on social media.
Credit to WWE for listening to the audience and adjusting. If Roman Reigns’ push has shown us anything, it’s that Vince McMahon can be stubborn when he wants to be, and will push forward with a character even if that character isn’t resonating with the crowd.
read more: Becky Lynch Pins Ronda Rousey in WrestleMania 35 Main Event
It would have been easy for Vince to blow off Kofi’s reaction at Elimination Chamber as a one-night thing, but instead, WWE pursued it and it paid off with arguably the most memorable moment of WrestleMania 35.
Moving forward, Kingston will likely hold the championship into May, when WWE has to head back to Saudi Arabia for another paid show by the Saudi government. This past fall, Daniel Bryan (rightfully) refused to go. If WWE wants its WWE Champion on that Saudi show, it makes sense to move the belt off of Bryan.
But aside from that, it made sense to change the title at ‘Mania because it was the right thing to do. The audience was ready for Kofi to be WWE Champion. They practically demanded it.
With WWE’s television ratings declining at a near record-setting pace and a huge debut on Fox coming up this fall, it’s about time the company listens to its audience in an attempt to grow it ahead of their network launch.
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Mike has covered almost everything working for The Eagle Tribune, a paper north of Boston. He can be found in rinks around New England covering college…