Kofi Nahaje Sarkodie-Mensah (born August 14, 1981) is a Ghanaian-born American professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Kofi Kingston and is part of The New Day.
After graduating from Boston College, he decided to pursue a professional wrestling career, and began performing on the New England independent circuit as a Jamaican wrestler by the name of Kofi Nahaje Kingston.[4] After signing a developmental deal with WWE in 2006, he shortened his ring name to Kofi Kingston. He debuted in WWE's brand ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) in 2008 using the same Jamaican character as he did on the independent circuit. In late 2009, he stopped being billed from Jamaica and dropped the accent, although he kept his ring name. He then started being billed from his home country of Ghana.
From 2008 to 2013, Kingston became a four-time Intercontinental Champion, a three-time United States Champion, a one-time World Tag Team Champion with CM Punk, and a two-time WWE Tag Team Champion with Evan Bourne and R-Truth. In 2014, he formed The New Day with Big E and Xavier Woods. The trio went on to break the record for the longest tag team championship reign in WWE history when they held the WWE (Raw) Tag Team Championship from August 2015 to December 2016, defending the titles under the Freebird rule.[5][6] In total, Kingston is a 16-time tag team champion in WWE. In April 2019, Kingston defeated Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35 to win the WWE Championship, giving him 24 total championships in WWE.
He is the first, and currently only, African-born world champion in WWE history. His WWE Championship win also made him WWE's 30th Triple Crown Champion and 20th overall Grand Slam Champion (13th under the current format).[7][8][9][10] With his NXT Tag Team Championship win in 2022, Kingston also became a Tag Team Triple Crown Champion, becoming the only wrestler to have won both the traditional and tag team version of the WWE Triple Crown, as well as having the most overall reigns with a WWE-branded tag team championship with 16.[11] With the exception of a few months spent as a villain in 2015 and his current run as a villain with The New Day, Kingston has been a heroic character for almost the entirety of his WWE career. He has also gotten some distinction through his numerous methods of avoiding elimination during the Royal Rumble.
