SmackDown star Kofi Kingston recently appeared on Busted Open Radio to hype up his upcoming WrestleMania showdown with Daniel Bryan for the WWE championship. During the interview, Kingston dissects the the racial undertones of his storyline, and how much pride he takes in representing his true self in the process.
We left it open ended for a reason and it means a lot of different things. For example, myself, I wear pigtails in the rain. I wear pink. I skip. I clap. I twerk. You know what I mean?And you don’t see someone like that in the main event scene. There is obviously the element of race concerned in it, right? Like, you haven’t seen many African American champions hold major titles.So, that is definitely a big piece of it. So, I think what’s awesome about this whole storyline is that so many people can identify with it. Whether it be people who are like black children, who are looking at the screen, and they see black men doing excellent things, and excelling and doing excellent things.
Now, they believe they can do excellent things. That’s a huge part of what we do, and it’s a huge element of pride that we take in being able to be that beacon of hope.But also, from the perspective that kind of transcends race, is the fact that this is a legitimate 11 year journey. It’s an 11 year grind. You know what I mean? People like us, like people who work as hard as they possibly can, who are told “no.” Even before I became a WWE superstar, I was told I was never going to make it because I wasn’t big enough. You know what I mean?I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t 6’8”, and here we are. You know what I’m saying? People who are always climbing obstacles – climbing mountains, only to find more mountains at the top of those mountains and having to climb again.You know, ‘people like us’ it involves – It’s everybody who has struggled, you know what I’m saying? Everybody who has – Who has had a difficult time getting to where they want to be.And now they can look at us as examples of, “Hey, I can do this because they did it, and I see it happening. Maybe I can do it too.”To be able to provide that motivation for anybody -You know, black, white, from anywhere. Anybody from anywhere can look to us and find that sense of motivation.
Check it out below.
"It's everybody who has struggled."
A lot has been made of the phrase "people like us" when it comes to the #KofiMania story heading into #WrestleMania but @TrueKofi says it was left open ended for a reason. pic.twitter.com/pDO5IobfIF
— SiriusXM Busted Open (@BustedOpenRadio) April 4, 2019
