Talking To WWE Champion Kofi Kingston About His WrestleMania Moment Almost Choked Me Up Today
Earlier today, Carrabis and I had the pleasure of speaking with the WWE Champion, Kofi Kingston, and obviously, more than anything, we wanted to talk to him about his WrestleMania moment this year at MetLife Stadium, in front of more than 85,000 people, two of which were us! We only had about 15 minutes with the Champ, so we brought it up early on, and for almost the rest of the interview, Kofi went on and on about what that was like – winning the WWE Championship, celebrating with his friends and family, getting to work with Daniel Bryan, making history – and it was one of the most enjoyable conversations I’ve ever had on a podcast.
Listening to Kofi walk us through the actual night he realized his dream was honestly just a beautiful, emotional thing, and I had chills the entire time. I even almost got choked up at one point! You can hear a clip from the interview above, and it’ll be available in full on Friday HERE, but I’ve transcribed a section of it at the bottom of this blog because I know we’re a long way from Friday, and the grapplefucks gotta be itchin!
Oh, and if you’re one of those old school From The Top Rope fans reading this, don’t worry, we got an obscure match recommendation from Kofi, and it doesn’t disappoint! I really hope we get to sit down with Kofi in-studio one day and go way more in-depth into his career, because I could listen to that guy talk for hours.
Obviously, Kofi Kingston will be on SmackDown tonight on the USA Network at 8pm EST/7pm Central to celebrate the return of Big E, and it should be a hell of a time, so don’t miss out on it!
CARRABIS: Do you remember anything from being in the ring after your hand was raised as the NEW WWE Champion?
KOFI: It’s crazy, you have this dream as a kid, and we tell kids not to try this stuff at home, and we definitely don’t encourage that, but when I was a kid, and I was doing these things at home that I wasn’t supposed to be doing, I would pretend that I was at WrestleMania wrestling for the WWE title, so, you know, the fact that it actually happened…the cliche “dream come true” is not cliche with me at all! It’s exactly what happened, so…I don’t know. I’ve never been in a SuperBowl, or a World Series, so I don’t know that feeling, but, for me, it is…it’s unimaginably huge.
CARRABIS: Right.
KOFI: Just to be able to say, you accomplished a lifetime goal is crazy, and then like, being the journey I had to take to get here, you know, being a legitimate 11 year – OVER 11 YEAR – struggle to try to climb the ranks, and even still, this only happened because somebody got hurt and I filled in! If Ali doesn’t get hurt, I don’t fill in at Elimination Chamber, and I don’t even know if I’m at the card at WrestleMania! The stars aligned, though, and I was able to replace him, and it just kinda took off from there! So to be in there, and actually get my hand raised, it was like all of these maximum climaxes of emotion, back to back to back!
CARRABIS: How did it compare? How did the thoughts and dreams you’ve had about that moment compare to the real thing?
KOFI: So I think as a kid, you can’t even put into perspective what it’s gonna feel like. For me, my goal as a child was, “I wanna win every single championship in WWE”, and that’s a real lofty goal, you know what I mean? Over the years, though, I win one, and another one and another one and I’m like, “Okay, I’m like 1 or 2 away from achieving this goal!”, but being a WWE Superstar, and actually having [WrestleMania] happen to me…it’s so much more. What we do in the ring is huge, but it’s really a small part of what we do. The emotion that we’re allowed to make people feel is really what it’s all about. Being able to look out into the crowd, and have people cheering, or booing, or whatever. You’re connecting with so many people! And for me, at WrestleMania, winning this championship, I didn’t realize that people wanted this to happen as badly as I did, you know? That made me feel so good about the fact that I’m doing my job. I’m going out there, and connecting with people, and allowing people to come on this 11 year journey…it’s not just me. It’s all of us. Everybody who’s supported me, everybody who’s followed me through the years, all of us – WE ALL achieved this. So it exceeded my expectations as a child. Honestly, it was picture perfect.