Kofi Kingston

Kofi Sarkodie-Mensah (born on August 14, 1981) is a Ghanaian-American professional wrestler, better known under his ring name, Kofi Kingston, currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment working on the Raw brand. Since competing for WWE, he has won the Intercontinental Championship once, the United States Championship once and the World Tag Team Championship once with CM Punk.

Sarkodie-Mensah was born in Ghana before his family moved to the United States in 1982. Coming from a family of intellectuals from near Kumasi in Ghana, he was expected to become a teacher like his grandfather。

Sarkodie-Mensah began wrestling professionally in 2005, under the ring name of Kofi Nahaje Kingston. Kingston’s country of birth was billed as Jamaica rather than Ghana, because, according to Leslie Goffe of the BBC, “[People] would be more likely to embrace a person from the land of Bob Marley and reggae music” than someone from Ghana. (It was not until the October 1st 2009 edition of Superstars, that he was for the first time announced as hailing from “Ghana, West Africa”.) He made his official wrestling debut in 2006, when he faced PWF Mayhem Heavyweight Champion Evan Siks on June 4

In September 2006, he signed a developmental contract with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and was assigned to Deep South Wrestling (DSW), a Georgia based developmental federation. He debuted in the new company, as Kofi Nahaje Kingston, in a dark match loss to Montel Vontavious Porter on September 21

In 2007, under the ring name “Kofi Jamaica”, he had his first exposure to the main WWE roster, when he worked dark matches on March 5 and 26 before episodes of Raw against Charlie Haas and Trevor Murdoch respectively. When he returned to the developmental federations, he shortened his original ring name to “Kofi Kingston” and continued to use both ring names throughout his duration there. He also worked live events, defeating Shelton Benjamin on May 5 and Val Venis on May 6

As part of the 2008 WWE Supplemental Draft, Kingston was drafted to the Raw brand. In his first match as a member of Raw roster, he defeated Chris Jericho for the WWE Intercontinental Championship at Night of Champions. The win made him the first Ghanaian wrestler to hold a championship in World Wrestling Entertainment and it was also his first championship in his wrestling career. Kingston held the championship until SummerSlam

At No Way Out in 2009, Kingston won a spot in the World Heavyweight Championship Elimination Chamber by defeating Kane, but was unable to officially enter in the match, as he was ambushed by Edge, who took Kingston’s place and eventually won the match

Kingston defeated Chris Jericho, after interference from Ric Flair, to earn a spot in the Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania XXV, but the match was won by CM Punk

On October 5, 2009, Kingston dropped the title to The Miz on Raw, ending his four month reign as champion