Kofi Kingston

[Dylan Waco]

Discuss Here.

[Matt D]

Discuss Here.

No.

[Dylan Waco]

Right now there are 634 nominees.

 

Kofi might make my top 600. Maybe.

[InYourCase]

He's better than Del Rio.

[GOTNW]

I find it incredibly bizarre that a WWE guy ripped Madoka's moves. Does he have some good matches? Probably yeah. But basing it on performance quality (which I put a lot more stock to than having a three star match every six months) I think he's been pretty terrible for the majority of his WWE career. Hard to care for a guy whose offence is goofy as fuck and only looks good when he botches it and hurts someone for real. Though I'd probably like him more if he did that more often. I won't even try to deny. The nose-breaking Miz GIF is incredible.

[KB8]

One thing about Kofi that makes him stand out to me in a way not many people do*, is that he will regularly perform a dive where the first part of it looks great, getting some crazy height on it and at times some near-Ohtani-level gracefulness...then when he connects with whatever the actual move is it ends up looking every bit as lousy as it looked good at the start. He can go from awesome to terrible literally over the course of performing a highspot. Most of the Kofi stuff I've seen - not a lot - has actually ranged from okay to good, but I say that having really only watched pimped matches involving him, and those matches have usually involved guys like Drew McIntyre, Cesaro, Daniel Bryan and The Shield being the better guys in those matches.

 

I don't hate him or anything, but I don't think he's very good, either.

 

 

*not necessarily in a good way

[Jimmy Redman]

OK OK guys.

 

Let me start by saying that this is one of those times when I think you're all totally cray cray. I love Kofi.

 

I was trying to nominate him all morning and it took me ages because it took me so long to find three things I'd written on his matches that didn't look like this:

 

KOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFI KINGSTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
KOFI! OMG HE DID THE THING! AND THE THING! AND THE MOVE! AND COUNTERED THE THING! AND THE MOVE! AND THEN HE WON! WITH THE FINISH LIKE THE FINISH OF THE THING! ARGH! KOFI! KOFI IS THE GREATEST I LOVE THAT MAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

 

(*sigh*...I really used to love wrestling.)

 

Anyway, I'm embarrassing myself for a reason, because the effect this man has on me is a huge part of his appeal. He's a pure, white meat, happy, smiling, dancing motherfuckin' BAY. BEE. FACE. He's a good guy that you can't help but root for, can't help but want him to win, can't help but be happy when he does. Even when I don't care about him for a time, he can flip a switch and turn it back on and suddenly I'm sitting there hollering for him again. Having that intrinsic babyface quality is something special, and Kofi has it for me more than all but a few of the faces I've grown up with.

 

Late 2010 is when I fell in love with Kofi. Specifically when he was wrestling Swagger a lot. I found something I wrote at the time that explains why:

Anyway, again, I've gone on a bit of a re-watching tear, and my God, Kofi and Swagger are just excellent men. Blow me down if they haven't had the best series of matches this year. Every time they've worked each other this year they have a great match, and not just that but each match develops their "story" perfectly; each time they find new counters for the other guy's move and find new ways to get their finisher in, they build on and learn from their previous matches and generally act like every match they have is the next chapter in this epic rivalry, like its real.

 

And they weren't even feuding! Well, not until 2 weeks ago. But they built this entire thing with no actual feud, no angle, no promos, no help, they've told this entire story in the ring. That's something.

 

Kofi's work in the second half of this year, in general, has been incredible. He's improved remarkably. His creativity is off the charts, his finishes are amazing and he's been having the best match on show for like 2 months now.

 

Some people like their spotfests with a million flips and rope runs and dives, or a million headdrops and apron bumps and no-selling exchanges. Me? I like my spotfests on Smackdown with a million counters and counters to counters and finisher variations and "learned psychology". That's my jam, and the Kofi/Swagger series tickled all of my tendrils. People go nuts over series like Cena/Punk or Cena/Owens for countering everything and building off previous matches. These guys were doing it before any of that, only they weren't even feuding and nobody but me was watching.

 

Kofi is always doing it though. Whenever he works multiple matches with anyone - Swagger, Dolph, Cesaro, Barrett, etc. - he's always playing off previous matches and coming up with nifty new counters to stuff. It's such a weird thing to say about someone as ridiculous as Kofi, but he really treats matches like they're real, sporting contests, and he's always thinking "I was in this situation last week against this guy, how can I change the outcome?" And boom, he comes up with a counter.

 

He has great finishes as well. Dylan often points out his love of guys having multiple finishers, in which case Kofi is your guy because he ended up with three legit finishers that he could beat people with: the kick, the SOS, the crossbody. And the way that he came to the crossbody was amazing. Kofi was chasing the IC Title (held by Dolph) from mid-2010 through the end of the year. While he was doing that, facing Swagger and everyone else on SD and slowly building momentum, he'd hit a big crossbody and get a HUGE nearfall off of it, getting closer and closer every time. This all lead to a final one-on-one title shot vs Dolph in Jan 2011, and after missing the kick and Dolph kicking out of the SOS, he hit the biggest crossbody yet and BAM, got the pin and the title. It simultaneously paid off a six month long title chase, and paid off the building nearfalls over a long period of time, and introduced another credible finisher for him. A few years later, Kofi was in some Shield matches while they were still undefeated, and at the end of one hit this mega crossbody at just the right moment and for a second I legit thought that Kofi Fucking Kingston was going to be the first man to beat The Shield. That's a credit to him and everyone else involved.

 

My favourite finish of his, however, is a very specific one.

 

In May 2010 Kofi and Christian had a match on Smackdown for the vacant IC Title, and at the end Christian gave Kofi a sunset flip, only Kofi rolled through it. They sat there staring at each other for a split second, then they both scrambled to their feet but on the way up Kofi spun around and NAILED Trouble in Paradise for the win. Me typing that out does not come close to expressing how visually impressive this was to me. It's one of my favourite finishes ever.

 

Over two years later, Kofi has a US Title shot vs Miz on one of the first Main Event episodes, when they were treating the show like a big deal. They have a long title match, and at the very end, Kofi rolls up Miz from behind but Miz rolls through it - in a split second Kofi's lightbulb goes off and as Miz gets to his feet, he spins and NAILS Trouble in Paradise to win another title.

 

Six months or so later, Kofi has a US Title shot vs Cesaro on Raw. At the end of the match, Kofi counters something with a sunset flip and they start trading rollups - Kofi's lightbulb goes off again and this time he decides to actively create an opening himself: he grabs Cesaro's leg and basically rolls him backwards to create the same roll-through motion, then spins and NAILS the kick to win yet another title.

 

Needless to say, I lost ALL of my shit every time.

 

To me this finish is something beyond a much cuter kind of "everyone leaps into an RKO" repeated finish. For one, he didn't do it once, realise it was cool and then run it into the ground. He used it when appropriate, when it matters. Furthermore, it's not cute or contrived in any way, it came out of a perfectly natural wrestling move that anyone can and does do, and the repeats didn't involve guys doing anything they weren't already doing (in comparison to someone going to the top out of character so they can jump into an RKO). It was Kofi treating his matches like a real contest, finding a natural counter, remembering it when the same situation came up again, and then finally being able to manipulate his way into it for his benefit.

 

My point in going on and on about something small is to demonstrate the level of thought and creativity Kofi puts into his matches, which are not the first attributes people associate with Kofi, and I find that decidedly unfair because he puts more thought into his matches than most.

 

People always rag on his lightness and sloppiness and bad offense, but I don't give a shit about that stuff. He's a smiley, bouncey, goofy as fuck babyface, of course he's going to have goofy as fuck offense. It fits him and it gets over, so I don't care how goofy or light it is. Same way I don't care about Cena's shitty punches.

 

He has another key talent that the people of this board don't give a shit about, and that's being a human highlight reel in all kinds of multi-man clusterfucks. Kofi is of enormous value for any Royal Rumble, battle royal, three or four way, Money in the Bank, a ladder match, tag team scramble...anything designed for someone to show off their ridiculous high spots, Kofi is there and coming up with wackier and more interesting spots than anyone else ever. I love him doing handstands or jumping on people's backs to save himself in the Rumble, I love him coming up with insane things to do with a ladder, I love him finding ways to hit tandem dives with anyone he meets, I love it all.

 

He's a great bumper. He can take a beating from a big guy and make it look like death. Barrett always looks good beating the crap out of him, Brock got to toss him around, Big Show uses him as a lawn dart. Kofi has really good matches with Ryback for the same reason. Kofi flies around Ryback like Rey flies around Mark Henry - getting his shots in and managing to escape every time he looks like getting caught, only to finally get caught for real and splattered into the ground.

 

He can also eat anyone's offense ridiculously well and make them look like a million bucks. I remember in the Shield run Ambrose was using a headlock driver as his finish, and it always looked kind of lame, but then in one of those matches with Kofi, he hit it on Kofi and Kofi SPIKED himself on his head RVD-style and for the first time I thought "Shit, that looked hurty, I buy that as a finish." He's so great with Cesaro because Cesaro just throws all of his shit at Kofi and Kofi takes it all like a fucking champ. He makes everyone's moves look killer.

 

He also has underrated babyface fire. The most obvious example is the Orton feud from late 2009, which while it lasted was a big thing and made Kofi look like the next big thing. Kofi was awesome in that, going after Orton like a madman and looking so pissed off and fiery. It's such a departure from his usual Smilin' Kofi self so it stands out so much more as well. I've enjoyed every time Angry Kofi has reared his head since.

 

And God this is all just as a babyface. I was never sure what Kofi would be like as a heel but he's transitioned really well. He's great in New Day as annoying as fuck Kofi, and they tend to have pretty good matches.

 

He's a really good tag team worker across the board actually, and has done good work with many partners as a face: Punk, Bourne, Truth. They were three really good runs and his teams usually had pretty good matches. He himself is great at all aspects of being a babyface tag team worker - knowing how to get a shine and for how long, selling a beating, standing on the apron, a spicy hot tag, and building an escalating finishing stretch.

 

I'm running out of things to say now, but I think Kofi gets a bad rap here. He's been pretty good for years now, has a lot of great matches to his name, and he's actually a much more creative and nuanced worker than he's ever given credit for.

 

Yesterday when voting was closed I suddenly thought to myself "Damn, should have nominated Kofi." So I'm glad I could squeeze him in here. I think he's much better than some other people who've been nominated (Shane McFuckingMahon for God sakes) and I wanted a chance to go to bat for him. The more I've been talking about him and the more I'm thinking about him, I can totally envision myself throwing him on my ballot. I just love the guy so damn much. But we'll see.

[Matt D]

Earnest post and it deserves a response, and probably better than the general one I'm going to give.

 

I love "Learned Psychology" too, and think it's probably the very best thing of this age of oversaturation. It's why Punk will be on my list, as much as anything else, and why I'll be higher than almost anyone on Christian. Really, all of the modern WWE workers I have will be on there, in part, for being good at that. It's a hugely important part of TV matches.

 

With Kofi, however, I feel like we see the strings far too clearly. Some of that has to do with who he has been paired with the most, but only part. There's an art to that level of creativity and continuity in match layout, but it has to be mixed with spontaneity and believability in execution. Maybe it's Kofi's physical grace. Maybe it's a side effect of his specific moves and the level of cooperation involved with some of them, but I see the strings too clearly in his matches. They come off as more choreographed than the people who work in that specific element who will fall on my list. It never feels natural and organic to me. It's a fine line and he doesn't even come close to making it onto the right side, to me.

 

I get what you're saying and I can go on that trip with other wrestlers, and do gladly, but not with Kofi.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I'd probably rather watch Kofi than John Morrison, for whatever that's worth.

[Jingus]

I might vote for Kofi. He'd be awfully low on the list, but he might be there. I like the execution of his moves a lot better than most of you guys seem to, I just don't see that much sloppiness. (As opposed to, say, Konnan in the late 90s; now THAT'S sloppy.) He does his job well, keeps the crowd into it, kids especially seem to love him. I've never understood the claim that he's supposedly so dangerous; he's basically doing a bunch of the same offense and highspots that Rob Van Dam used to, but in a much safer manner and with far fewer injuries.

[Timbo Slice]

Will vote for him when he's not being billed from Ghana, West Africa.

[Benbeeach]

Will vote for him when he's not being billed from Ghana, West Africa.

I'm from Ghana, West Africa. Do we have a problem here?

[JerryvonKramer]

"Learned Psychology"

What is this?

[Matt D]

It's explained in the long post above.

 

 

Some people like their spotfests with a million flips and rope runs and dives, or a million headdrops and apron bumps and no-selling exchanges. Me? I like my spotfests on Smackdown with a million counters and counters to counters and finisher variations and "learned psychology". That's my jam, and the Kofi/Swagger series tickled all of my tendrils. People go nuts over series like Cena/Punk or Cena/Owens for countering everything and building off previous matches. These guys were doing it before any of that, only they weren't even feuding and nobody but me was watching.

 

Kofi is always doing it though. Whenever he works multiple matches with anyone - Swagger, Dolph, Cesaro, Barrett, etc. - he's always playing off previous matches and coming up with nifty new counters to stuff. It's such a weird thing to say about someone as ridiculous as Kofi, but he really treats matches like they're real, sporting contests, and he's always thinking "I was in this situation last week against this guy, how can I change the outcome?" And boom, he comes up with a counter.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'd probably circle the phrase with a red pen and write "can you develop this?" in the margin.

[Matt D]

I do think that people who have watched a lot of WWE TV over the last ten years or so would understand it immediately, but not everyone has.

[Jimmy Redman]

To try to answer it better, it's when a wrestler appears to "learn" from a previous match or matches with an opponent by coming up with counters to their moves, counters to the counters they made to my own moves, and generally acting like they remember the previous matches and are trying to learn from them. Thus, matches build upon one another in a series.

 

You'd sort of need to watch an entire series of matches to really see it. Good examples are the Cena vs Punk matches, the Orton vs Christian matches in 2011, and in this particular case, Kofi vs Swagger matches from 2010.

 

To me it's a way in which wrestlers can treat wrestling like a sport, without necessarily being physically realistic. Kofi Kingston is goofy as shit and has ridiculous looking offense, but when he faced Swagger two weeks in a row, in match #2 he had counters or an answer for things that Swagger hit him with in match #1. It's like Kofi (in kayfabe) sat down during the week, watched the first match and thought "If I got caught in that situation again, how could I get out of it?" And thus had a game plan for when they met again. I like that in a wrestler.

 

I can look at a match and go into detail on specific moves if you like, but that's the general idea.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think it's a cool concept.

[Jimmy Redman]

Like Matt said, it's particularly symptomatic of modern day WWE, mainly because modern WWE is the land of endless rematches and so much damn TV, so two guys can often have multiple matches in a short space of time (whether in a PPV series, or a TV feud, or just a "we have nothing for you so here, have a match on Raw, and Smackdown, and Superstars, and Raw again") and so creativity and "learned psychology" is necessary to differentiate the matches and make them interesting and compelling.

 

To bring it back to Kofi, I found the Swagger matches particularly impressive because there was no feud, it was just that they were both in the SD midcard and thus wrestled each other every so often. They could have easily just painted by numbers and been done with it, but they took the time to really think about their matches and their history and be as creative as possible, for the betterment of their matches. I may have been the only one paying attention, but I appreciated it.

[Matt D]

It's something I think would be worth examining in a few different places, first being week to week in front of the same crowd in territories. I think Portland and Memphis aren't the best choices though because opponents shifted so often or there would be gimmick matches, plus we aren't complete in footage (we don't have the Portland Tuesday shows, for instance). WCW 90-92 is sort of interesting as you have so many TV matches with the same opponents. Something like lucha in Arena Mexico on a week to week basis is as well. I think you absolutely see this style of Learned Psychology in the Dragon Lee/Kamaitachi series from the last two years. but it'd take more effort to map.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm kind of amazed JVK hadn't really heard that term before now. It's pretty critical to how many people view AJPW

[funkdoc]

I'm kind of amazed JVK hadn't really heard that term before now. It's pretty critical to how many people view AJPW

 

just came in here to say exactly this

 

it was such a huge concept among that crowd that you eventually had people using it to describe shit like Kelly Kelly matches

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm kind of amazed JVK hadn't really heard that term before now. It's pretty critical to how many people view AJPW

We've talked about the general idea plenty but not the term.

 

Kinda funny cos in 1998 Misawa knows no one is gonna be put away with the Tiger Driver, so he doesn't even wait for a one count.

[Loss]

I tend to think it's all coincidence unless the announcers specifically mention it, since their job is to point out everything we're supposed to notice.

[Matt D]

That's not at all true now.