The build to Kofi Mania was pretty great, yeah? The title reign after it? Well... not so much.
How would Adam book Kofi Kingston's WWE Championship run? Let's find out!
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How would Adam book Kofi Kingston's WWE Championship run? Let's find out!
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
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Category
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SportsTranscript
00:00 "I love the new day in all respects but one, don't you tell me not to be sour. I was born
00:05 sour then I became a wrestling fan. It got worse since then."
00:09 Kofi Mania was one of those flukes of wrestling, the kind of accidental, lightning in a bottle
00:16 events that reminds you that a) wrestling is a living, breathing product that still
00:22 has the capacity to evolve in surprising and emotionally resonant ways and b) WWE really
00:30 doesn't like it when that happens.
00:34 WWE is like a parent who books a really nice holiday for themselves but then their kid
00:40 brings an adorable puppy home and then suddenly they have to make all these new plans on the
00:46 fly and so the parents just try to subtly and quietly drown the puppy and then the kid
00:53 starts crying so they towel the puppy off. I say okay there you go, play with it. We
01:00 do have to catch that plane though. Hey look over there. Why, why, keep looking. Why won't
01:06 you die?
01:07 In one sense I understand Ryanair doesn't do refunds but also Kofi Kingston first debuted
01:14 in WWE in 2008 on ECW as a man committed to Jamaica's crazy and wouldn't let the fact
01:21 that he was African rather than Jamaican stop him from doing that. Now to be fair to the
01:25 big dub and spoilers I won't be fair to the big dub a lot in this video, that was actually
01:32 the gimmick that Kofi had on the independent circuit. He was, being Jamaican was his idea
01:38 before joining the company. So in 2009 he got hit on the head probably and became from
01:44 Ghana, it's always happening, and was promoted to an upper midcard fighting for Raw on bragging
01:50 rights eating the pin sure but then getting involved in the main event of John Cena vs
01:55 Randy Orton which translated into a feud between the Viper and Kofi which was a big deal. Kofi
02:02 was feuding with a former WWE Champion having big hero segments like that huge boom drop
02:09 from the railing in November and then the push ended in a way that could best be described
02:15 as stupid. In a triple threat match between John Cena, Randy Orton and Kofi Kingston,
02:19 again look at him in the mix with those two. Kofi botched the finish of the match, Orton
02:23 blew his top and so the story goes. The real life heat cost Kingston a pencilled Money
02:30 in the Bank victory that year and over the next decade Kofi became an entrenched midcarder.
02:37 A charismatic midcarder absolutely but a midcarder seemingly for life. He became part of the
02:43 New Day in 2015, they got over like crazy as obnoxious heels before Kofi settled into
02:49 a reliably lucrative comedy act with easy, utterly convincing friendship chemistry with
02:55 Big E Langston, now called Big E, and Xavier Woods, now called King Woods. They could pull
03:02 match of the night tag matches out of their arse with minimal prep, New Day vs The Usos
03:06 was the best feud of 2017 and people didn't expect more from Kofi and that was fine. A
03:14 position in the company that worked that no one really questioned until February 2019
03:20 and the lightning in the bottle. Elimination Chamber was fast approaching featuring a Chamber
03:25 match for Daniel Bryan's WWE Championship. In that match Samoa Joe, Randy Orton, Jeff
03:33 Hardy, AJ Styles, The New Daniel Bryan and Mustafa Ali. On the February 12th episode
03:40 of Smackdown a gauntlet match was to be held to determine who would enter the Elimination
03:46 Chamber last with one issue was that Ali suffered a bad concussion at a house show in Indiana
03:54 and was pulled from Smackdown and Elimination Chamber entirely. It was announced he'd
03:58 be replaced by a member of the New Day and when that was first announced, be honest now,
04:03 no one cared. Then the gauntlet match happened, Kofi wrestled Daniel Bryan with time to spare
04:08 which by the way is a really good way to make someone look good. He held his own against
04:13 D-Bry, wrestled a style we hadn't seen from him in quite a while before holy s*** pinning
04:19 the WWE Champion. Absolutely huge. He went on to wrestle for ages after that pinning
04:26 Jeff Hardy, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles with commentary asking "Is this the best Kofi Kingston of
04:34 his career that we are seeing?" The best bit of that match, AJ Styles telling an exhausted
04:39 Kofi to just stop. It's alright, it's over and Kofi shoving AJ away saying "No, I've
04:46 waited too long. I've waited 11 years." And everyone at home realising that's right.
04:53 That he's right. On one night, Kofi's survival allowed WWE to tell an organic story, one
05:00 steeped in actual tangible history where the pieces just fell into their lap. A story that
05:06 shifted the audience's perspective of someone who'd been a mid-carder for a full decade.
05:11 It was an exhilarating moment. Again, a moment of living, adapting, wrestling and the audience
05:19 thought, "You know what? We're not going to let this one go." KofiMania built steam
05:26 with perfect, un-zogged booking at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view before falling off the
05:31 rails a little bit on the road to WrestleMania itself. It was mostly fine. It wasn't exactly
05:38 Daniel Bryan's run to the top in 2014 where the plans literally changed at the last possible
05:44 moment. Even before Fastlane, KofiMania was the plan going into WrestleMania 35. It's
05:49 just that the way they went about it was a bit weird. "Vince didn't like Kofi."
05:56 "Why don't you like Kofi, Vince?" Vince said. And honestly, the lack of cogent reasoning
06:04 behind Vince repeatedly stripping Kofi of opportunities just made the whole thing look
06:10 like Vince was an old Karen shouting at an African man in the street whilst also reassuring
06:17 everyone that "I'm not racist. I've got one black friend and his name is Dwayne 'The
06:23 Rock' Johnson." However you look at it, not explaining why the villain is doing things
06:28 beyond sheer villainy is not great. A few months and many gauntlet matches later, Kofi
06:34 got his Daniel Bryan branded WrestleMania moment against, quite appropriately, Daniel
06:40 Bryan himself. Wrestling the new Daniel Bryan with time to spare, which by the way is a
06:45 really good way to have a great WrestleMania match. Kofi pinned him, was crowned WWE Champion
06:51 and it was genuinely, unutterably lovely. And then… just… like Kofi held the title,
07:02 the WWE title, I'll remind you, for 180 days. 1-8-0. And the number of pay-per-views
07:12 that he may have entered as champion, well it was one of those three numbers. And it
07:17 wasn't the eight. It wasn't the one. Kofi Kingston, WWE Champion, closed the show on
07:23 pay-per-view zero times. Like not once. He beat KO at Money in the Bank, didn't main
07:30 event. Then because of Saudi ethics, KO was shoved out of the way and downgraded to Dolph
07:34 Ziggler at Super Showdown. And then again at Stomping Ground. Like Dolph Ziggler, Dolph
07:41 Ziggler, I like Dolph Ziggler. I'm not one of those people that hates Dolph. Like he's
07:47 good. But he's also like the angel of death for new exciting stars isn't he? Nakamura.
07:54 At Extreme Rules, Kofi retained against Samoa Joe. Again, fair enough, but didn't main
08:01 event. It was pretty good. And then they finally moved onto a feud with a bit of weight and
08:07 reason for being behind it. Ten years after his push was derailed at the hands of the
08:12 Viper, Kofi and Randy Orton fought at SummerSlam and the match, oh, the match ended because
08:21 Randy looked at Kofi's kids and Kofi went into a pancake panic and they fought to a
08:29 double count out and it was the worst f***ing thing. Fun fact, at SummerSlam the year before
08:35 the WWE Championship match also didn't main event. Had a deeply personal feud end with
08:41 a rubbish non-finish when the champion got a rage on when his family were mentioned and
08:45 kicked too much ass and everyone hated that as well. It's just the same mistakes over
08:52 and over again. What's the f***ing point of being alive? At Clash of Champions, Kofi
08:57 beat Randy Orton in a slow match, by which point no one really cared because the SummerSlam
09:01 thing was so sh*t. And then, on the October 4th episode of Smackdown, the debut of Smackdown
09:08 on Fox to pop the Network Execs and set up a Saudi Arabia blood money past its prime
09:14 UFC feud, which would result in one single terrible match, Brock Lesnar defeated Kofi
09:20 Kingston in 8 seconds to win the WWE Championship, ending Kingston's 180 day reign in a single
09:28 move. And look, I understand why they did it. I know they wanted to do a big thing for
09:34 Smackdown's big day. They were using the title change to promote for the future. And I've
09:40 been pretty public about the fact that I do quite like the presentation of Brock Lesnar
09:46 as this unassailable evil twat with a belt, but it was how they did it which is just so
09:54 f*cking insulting. Yes, 8 seconds, one move. That sucks. But what sucks more was literally
10:01 the next week on Smackdown, 7 days later, Kofi immediately slid down the card, appearing
10:08 in a segment with New Day, holding pancakes and smiling, promoting Susan G. Combs and
10:14 having a meaningless 6 man tag with the New Day vs the OC. And at no point, literally
10:21 no point, Kofi cut a promo on the show, he cut a promo on that Smackdown, at no point
10:26 did Kofi mention the fact that he was WWE Champion 7 f*cking days earlier. Nor did he
10:31 even slightly express an interest in getting the championship, the high point of an 11
10:37 year career he's waited too long back. There was a brief reference to it at the Royal Rumble
10:42 when he turned up to a big bloody f*cking pop, lest we forget, to challenge Brock in
10:47 the Rumble match before being soundly defeated yet again. It's maddening. Genuinely Jinder
10:54 Mahal got more aftercare when his WWE Championship reign ended. And that was something that,
10:59 well, I and some other people, that's something we actually want to forget. Not everyone though,
11:06 because some of you are wankers. But no, Kofi was done, his character suffered overnight
11:12 amnesia and his aspirations were never mentioned again. After suffering with the puppy that
11:18 their kid brought home for almost a full calendar year, WWE, the parents finally managed to
11:24 put a bullet in the puppy's head. And when their kid got upset about it, they were like,
11:29 I mean, you're lucky you even had a puppy at all. And also, you never had a puppy. Now
11:35 how about Cain Velasquez? Should we go on holiday with him? It'll be short. Bollocks.
11:44 Bollocks to it all. Let me have a go. Now look, let's not look at things with rose
11:52 tinted glasses. Kofi's WWE Championship reign wasn't very good. Some of that is down to
12:00 the fact that like AJ Styles' long run with the WWE Championship the year before, and
12:05 to some extent CM Punk's 434 day title reign before that, during his tenure, the WWE title
12:12 was treated as an upper mid card belt. A combination of lesser opponents, in some cases. I do like
12:21 you, Dolph. WWE non-finishers to sell the next pay-per-view booking. But also, in the
12:27 ring, Kofi wasn't that dynamic a champion. Sorry, sorry. It wasn't very good for a combination
12:36 of reasons. See, after the Daniel Bryan match at Mania, the matches didn't reach the same
12:41 quality. Kofi's great. He really is. But the chase was over. The magical moment had been
12:48 achieved. And without that contentious relationship between WWE and its fans, without the fans
12:53 feeling like WWE was denying them something that they'd always wanted, which is when the
12:57 fans are most vocal in this era anyway, the enthusiasm for Kofi Kingston, WWE Champion,
13:05 just gradually ebbed away. I understand that. But that also shouldn't be treated like an
13:10 inevitability because Kofi is great, for one. And second, it doesn't excuse the fact that
13:16 Kofi got no follow-up. Like, you've made a new WWE Champion. He was champion for 180
13:23 days. And even without the racial optics, which a lot of people will reject, of the
13:28 whitest, most Aryan man you can find reclaiming the belt on Fox, and the black guy just immediately
13:35 going back to knowing his place with a smile. Even without that lens, it's just objectively
13:42 sh*t storytelling. WWE, you are asking us to watch your show every single week based
13:48 on the consequences of people's actions and how the characters you're presenting to us
13:53 are going to react to their circumstances. No matter how you look at it, this kind of
13:58 booking actively hurts the audience's desire to tune in to see what their favorite characters
14:02 are up to because their favorite characters don't act like people. I mean, honestly, sh*t
14:06 like this is why most of the audience doesn't stick around. So that's the point of this
14:10 booking. Give Kofi more opponents to play into his strengths. Have the WWE Championship
14:14 main event some f*cking pay-per-views. And have the reign end in a way that treats the
14:18 character of Kofi Kingston with a little bloody dignity. We start on the build up to WrestleMania
14:23 35. The only things that change here are, one, Mustafa Ali does not compete for the
14:28 WWE Championship at Fastlane. Instead, it's just Kevin Owens versus Daniel Bryan. And
14:32 two, let's clear up Vince's motivations a little, shall we? Instead of just avoiding
14:36 the issues and just relying on B+ Player to take care of it, have Vince actually make
14:42 it clear that, "Look, Kofi, I like you. You've been great over the last 10 years.
14:47 You know, thanks for your service. But if you were going to be a main event star, we're
14:51 looking at a decade, Kofi. You would have done it already." Now, you don't seem to
14:55 understand. I'm all for opportunities, pal. But this is WrestleMania we're talking about.
15:02 The biggest show of the year. We're talking about the WWE Championship match at WrestleMania.
15:10 I'm sorry, but it is too big a spotlight, and I am not willing to risk you challenging
15:17 for that title, making my show lesser than. I'm sorry. There you go. Simple as that. The
15:24 logical reasoning is, you will hurt WrestleMania with this crusade of yours, so know your place.
15:31 Let's move on. And Kofi says, "No. After 11 years of doing just that, this might be
15:37 my only chance. I won't let it go." So then we have Kofi winning the bell at WrestleMania
15:44 like it happened. Lovely moment. Not changing a thing. Except that in the aftermath of the
15:48 show, Daniel Bryan takes out all of his aggression on Erick Rowan. Fires him from his retinue.
15:57 Kicks his arm. Loses the plot. After WrestleMania, big celebration for Kofi with the New Day.
16:04 And instead of immediately going into a champion versus champion match, a unification match
16:13 no less with Seth Rollins on Raw, which is incredibly dumb because A, we've just seen
16:19 two babyfaces win their belts and we don't want to see either of them lose their belt
16:23 just yet, and B, there's absolutely zero chance of that match ending any other way
16:29 than disappointingly, and hey look, a disappointing finish. Just a bad old thing. Like straight
16:37 out of the gate for Kofi's title reign. Completely unnecessary. Instead, let's do the interesting
16:42 story that for some reason WWE never really attempted to do except super briefly two years
16:50 later via the turd smeared filter of retribution, which was bad. And that's Kofi versus Mustafa
16:58 Ali. Kofi's out there with the New Day. There's pancakes in the shape of the WWE Championship.
17:05 There are tearful words from Big E and Xavier Woods about how this is the proudest moment
17:12 of their lives. It's an honor to stand here and watch someone who deserves this so much.
17:19 Achieving their dream. And when Kofi finally gets a chance to hold the mic to say a few
17:25 words Ali's music hits. Mustafa Ali comes down and says, "Look, first of all, I just
17:33 want to say congratulations. You deserve it." Gets a "You deserve it" chant going. But here's
17:40 the thing. I deserved it too. Woods and Big E are like, "Dude, like, we get it, but read
17:48 the room. This isn't your moment." And Ali responds, "It should have been. It should
17:53 have been. Kofi, I'm talking to you, not your boys. You talked about waiting for this. Waiting
17:59 too long. Well, I'm not going to make that mistake, Kofi. I'm not waiting. I was kicked
18:05 in the head and through no fault of my own. I was taken out of the chamber. I wanted to
18:11 keep going. I wrestled with my concussion because this was my dream too. I would have
18:18 won the Elimination Chamber and then I would have gone on to beat you at WrestleMania.
18:23 I should be WWE Champion right now. So I'm coming out here with the chance for you to
18:30 do the right thing." Turns to the crowd, asks, "Why are you booing me? I'm right." And he
18:36 is, kind of, but he's just being a dick about it, which is the perfect heel reasoning. A
18:41 quirk of fate took something from Mustafa Ali and gave it to Kofi, and if Kofi doesn't
18:46 realize that he's lucky, Kofi should do the gracious thing and let Ali have next. And
18:54 Kofi realizes Mustafa Ali's being a bit of a dick about this, but he accepts. The match
19:00 is made for Money in the Bank. In the build to Money in the Bank, Xavier Woods and Big
19:04 E win the right to compete against The Usos for the SmackDown Tag Championships, and Ali
19:08 slowly turns to the dark side before finally snapping. On an episode of SmackDown before
19:14 the show, The Usos blindside The New Day, take them out, Kofi runs down to help out
19:19 where he's attacked by Mustafa Ali. Ali takes Kofi, puts his head between the stairs and
19:25 the ring post, and kicks it as hard as he can. He's trying to give Kofi a concussion,
19:32 the injury that robbed him of his WWE Championship opportunity. Kofi is cleared to compete, just,
19:40 but he's banged up. So at Money in the Bank, we've got the following matches. Daniel
19:44 Bryan defeats Eric Rowan by capitalizing on the injured arm. Big E and Xavier Woods defeat
19:51 The Usos to win the SmackDown Tag Team Championships, and Kofi successfully defends in a 15 minute,
19:59 hopefully barnstormer match against Ali, a top level worker. Kofi fights out from underneath
20:06 an injured head to beat him. New Day at the end of the night, hold all the gold.
20:15 The next PPV is stomping grounds, because I really truly don't give a shit about Super
20:19 Showdown or booking around it. In order to keep the Kofi Kingston having top quality
20:24 PPV matches as champion train going, let's just reinsert Daniel Bryan into Kofi's life,
20:30 shall we? New Day are in the ring after Money in the Bank, when Daniel Bryan comes out to
20:37 confront them. Don't think that I forgot what you stole from me. I had a bit of business
20:44 to take care of last month, but now I am putting you on notice. The fairy tale is coming to
20:53 an end. I know why you won, Kofi. I know why you won. Power of friendship, right? Positivity.
21:01 Because of course, there's never going to be a fair fight, was it with your cheerleaders
21:09 in your corner watching your back? It's unfair. It's unworthy of a WWE champion. So I decided
21:17 to make some new friends of my own. And that is when Woods and Big E are attacked from
21:23 behind by the men now known as FTR, The Revival. Daniel Bryan beats down Kofi Kingston. Daniel
21:30 Bryan and The Revival form a super group, a super worker super group, and stand tall.
21:37 This leads to a winner take all six man tag team match at stomping grounds. Daniel Bryan
21:43 and The Revival versus The New Day for both the WWE Championship and the Smackdown Tag
21:50 Titles. I just want to see that. Don't you want to see that? I want to see that. I mean,
21:57 did you watch Stomping Grounds? That was main evented by Seth Rollins versus Baron Corbin.
22:04 Just a thought. How about this? With three belts on the line, main events instead. It's
22:09 just a thought. At the pay-per-view, Kofi pins Dash Wilder and The New Day retain all
22:14 of their belts as the brotherhood of best friends. Obviously, Daniel Bryan wasn't pinned
22:20 in that match, so he's still got a massive cob on about the whole thing. No, no. Which
22:27 sends us to extreme rules. And instead of one match between New Day and the super group,
22:33 what should we call them? I genuinely haven't written this in the script. What should we
22:35 call Daniel Bryan and The Revival? Dad's on tour. At Extreme Rules, there's two matches
22:41 featuring those teams. A ladder match for the Smackdown Tag Team Titles, The Revival
22:45 versus New Day. And in the show's main event, not Seth and Becky versus Baron Corbin and
22:51 Lacey Evans. Shock horror. That can open the show, please. It can also end with Brock's
22:56 cash in. You know, whatever. That's fine. But instead, the main event of Extreme Rules
23:00 is a 30 minute Iron Man match, Kofi Kingston versus Daniel Bryan. With Bryan making it
23:07 his mission to expose Kofi Kingston as a fluke champion that just relies on his friends.
23:14 At Extreme Rules, The Revival beat The New Day to be crowned the new Smackdown Tag Team
23:20 Champion, setting up the vibe of "Oh no, the New Day's world is crumbling". In the
23:26 first 15 minutes of the Iron Man match, Daniel Bryan cheats to go 2-0 up on Kofi. Really
23:34 booking to get the crowd behind him. There's parallels here with the Gauntlet match that
23:39 started all of this. Kofi struggling to get to his feet. Time running out on him. Kofi
23:46 mania ending how it began. But of course, Kofi fights back to equalise before hitting
23:52 one last Trouble in Paradise at the 10 second mark to snag a 3-2 victory, definitively beating
24:00 the new Daniel Bryan. And then after this is where you have the Orton match. And note
24:05 the use of the singular there. Match. Kofi Kingston versus Randy Orton at SummerSlam,
24:11 one and done. Absolutely do the feud. It's a great story. And so far in this booking,
24:16 every feud for Kofi has made sense. Ali's lost opportunity, Daniel Bryan's quest for
24:21 revenge after Mania, and now we escalate it with a feud 10 years in the making. All the
24:28 stuff worked that WWE put into it. I succeeded not because of you, but despite you, Randy.
24:35 And Randy, see, you weren't good enough, Kofi, back then. And the thing that will really
24:40 break your heart, not just losing the title, not just losing it in front of the world,
24:46 but the fact that after 11 years of the grind, as you put it, you're still not good enough
24:53 to beat me. So SummerSlam, Kofi versus Orton, good. It's a good story. Let's just provide
24:59 it with an ending. On the biggest stage, SummerSlam, when the focal point of the entire match is
25:04 Randy is better than Kofi and one RKO will end everything, have Kofi manage to keep avoiding
25:11 the RKO, keep slipping out of it, driving Randy Orton increasingly mad to the point
25:16 where Randy gets angry so that it mirrors that famous match back in 2009. He is beside
25:23 himself with rage. Have him run back for the punch, run in, trouble in paradise. F***
25:29 you, pin, done. Story over. When it mattered, while people were most interested in the story,
25:35 Orton puts Kofi over on the biggest stage he can, everything tied off, nice and neat.
25:41 Wrestling, it's just not that hard. You don't have to make it this hard. Is Kofi versus
25:46 Orton going to main event SummerSlam over Lesnar versus Rollins? No, probably not. So
25:51 let's put the WWE Championship back in the spotlight at Clash of Champions. And in line
25:57 with that event being all about titles, champions, what it's like to hold a championship, the
26:02 concept of putting the champion under the biggest amount of threat, main event the show
26:09 with a six pack challenge for the WWE Championship. Kofi defending the belt against Randy Orton,
26:19 Daniel Bryan, Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns and Aleister Black. You don't want to do a match
26:26 like this all the time, absolutely, because it can make the title picture seem a little
26:32 undefined, unfocused. But once in a while, if you want to really nail down that this
26:39 belt is important and this champion is important, it also gives you the chance to have an atmosphere
26:45 so chaotic that if Kofi retained, which he does here, by the way, then he's sure he's
26:51 technically beaten everyone. But also no one really loses anything in defeat because there's
26:57 just so much madness going on at the pay-per-view. Kofi wins, stands tall in ultimate victory
27:05 as the head of the SmackDown roster. And that is when Brock Lesnar's music hits. He heads
27:13 up to the ring. He plants Kofi with an F5 and this sets up Kofi versus Brock Lesnar,
27:19 not on a random ass episode of SmackDown. OK, it wasn't a random ass episode of SmackDown,
27:24 I'll grant you, but also, f*** Fox, no special treats for you. Instead, the two square off
27:30 inside hell and Brock spends the entire month leading up to that match killing the New Day,
27:40 destroying Big E and Xavier Woods, delivering F5s on the outside of the ring to both men,
27:46 destroying Kofi's friends, all as Paul Heyman outlines there. Kofi is a fantastic physical
27:55 champion, but mentally, he's weak. All it took was taking out your little buds, your
28:04 annoying brittle little besties, and you've completely lost your edge. And Brock Lesnar
28:12 will tangle you up in your rage and he will choke you with it. Brock has been through
28:21 hell and on Sunday, he will be your guide. I'm sorry to say it, I really am, but Brock
28:29 Lesnar at Hell in a Cell beats Kofi Kingston to become new WWE champion. But at least this
28:36 way it happens in a match rather than in a gif. After the match, Brock takes a steel
28:41 chair to Kofi's leg, the one that earlier in the match caught him with a trouble in
28:45 Paradise for a close two, he repeatedly smashes the chair over Kofi's leg, over and over
28:53 and over, putting Kofi out for months. While he's gone around TLC time, WWE conduct interviews
29:01 with Kofi Kingston in his house, talking about Kofi's rehab and how this has been the worst
29:08 few months of Kofi Kingston's life. The WWE Championship was everything to him and failing
29:16 like that, maybe, just maybe, Kofi's lost the power of positivity. This takes us to
29:24 the Royal Rumble where Brock is doing his Brock thing and by the way, I do want it on
29:30 the record that the stretch of Brock Lesnar in the 2020 Rumble is legit one of my favourite
29:35 Rumble memories. Brock's brilliant, gang, sorry about that, but he is. At number 10
29:42 out comes Kofi Kingston, making his first appearance on WWE programming in more than
29:48 two months. He is back and he f***ing goes for Brock Lesnar and basically, Kofi just
29:55 replaces Ricochet in the real life booking of How I Went. He gets Brock in the balls,
30:01 leading to the Claymore from McIntyre eliminating Brock Lesnar. Kofi then goes on to last in
30:06 the Rumble, doing more of his crazy spots until late in the match, maybe fifth or sixth
30:12 from the end before being eliminated by Roman Reigns. Again, heat Roman up before Drew scoops
30:17 all that adulation for eventually eliminating Roman for the win. Which leads to our final
30:22 stop in this story. Elimination Chamber 2020. One year on from the birthplace of Kofi Mania,
30:31 where he came up so desperately short against the new Daniel Bryan, Kofi challenges Brock
30:38 Lesnar for the WWE Championship. He is not afraid. He wants this more than he's wanted
30:47 anything. And that will fuel him to do what no one believes that he can do. He will beat
30:56 Brock Lesnar. And at Elimination Chamber, he does not do that. Sorry. Kofi puts up a
31:05 great fight, but Lesnar beats Kingston one more time. All the heat in the world ready
31:11 and waiting for Drew McIntyre, the new star to take his turn in the spotlight and conquer
31:17 the beast at WrestleMania 36. Admittedly, in total silence, in an empty room. That's
31:24 a shame. And that is how Kofi Mania ends. Not ultimately in victory, no. But at least
31:30 it ends in a way that makes sense. Kofi loses the title, gets crushed, fights back, keeps
31:35 his sights set on the title and comes up short. That's fine. But at least he doesn't lose
31:40 that underdog drive, that ambition, that purpose that drove us all to get behind him on the
31:47 road to WrestleMania 35. And that is how I would book Kofi Mania and, I guess, more how
31:54 I would book Kofi Kingston's WWE title run. Do you disagree? Am I a bastard for having
32:01 Brock win? Sorry, I guess. Sorry. Please subscribe to Parts of Unknown. And also let me know
32:07 in the comments what else you'd like me to book. Because it's hard to come up with these
32:11 ideas. I've booked most things. So if you could help me out, that would be appreciated.
32:18 We'll see you soon. Jam that jam.