His WWE Championship win also made him WWE's 30th Triple Crown Champion and 20th overall Grand Slam Champion (13th under the current format).
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 15.
1981
Kofi Nahaje Sarkodie-Mensah (born August 14, 1981) is a Ghanaian-born American professional wrestler.
He is currently 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.
Kofi Nahaje Sarkodie-Mensah was born in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region of Ghana on August 14, 1981, to Kwasi and Elizabeth Sarkodie-Mensah.
He has a brother, Kwame (who is a Twitch streamer under the name Temp0 ), and a late sister, Nana Akua.
He moved with his family to the United States and eventually settled in the greater Boston area, where he graduated from Winchester High School in Winchester, Massachusetts, and then Boston College.
2005
Sarkodie-Mensah started training in late 2005 and made his official wrestling debut in 2006 for Chaotic Wrestling, when he faced Evan Siks on June 4 for the PWF Mayhem Heavyweight Championship in a losing effort.
He competed primarily in the New England area, including stints in National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) – New England (where he was briefly a member of Barry Ace's "A-List"), Millennium Wrestling Federation (MWF), New England Championship Wrestling (NECW), the Eastern Wrestling Alliance (EWA), and Chaotic Wrestling.
2006
After signing a developmental deal with WWE in 2006, he shortened his ring name to Kofi Kingston.
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.
For the rest of 2006 and the beginning of 2007, he appeared in DSW, as well as its Kentucky-based sister promotion Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), where he was in a tag team dubbed the Commonwealth Connection with Harry Smith.
2007
In 2007, under the ring name Kofi Nahaje Kingston, 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 alternate between both ring names throughout his duration there.
He also worked live events, defeating Shelton Benjamin on May 5, and Val Venis on May 6.
When the Florida-based developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) opened in June, Kingston was relocated there, appearing at their inaugural show on June 26 where he teamed with Eric Pérez against Keith Walker and Rycklon Stephens in a losing effort.
Kingston worked there for most of the remainder of the year.
A series of vignettes for Kingston's television debut began airing on the weekly ECW on Syfy television show starting on December 6, 2007.
During this introduction phase, his videos, the official website and commentators noted he would be the first Jamaican to wrestle for WWE, but he does not have any Jamaican ancestry, nor any connection to Jamaica.
He is, however, the first African-born performer in WWE history.
2008
He debuted in WWE in 2008 using the same Jamaican character as he did on the independent circuit.
From 2008 to 2013, Kingston became a four-time Intercontinental Champion, a three-time United States Champion, and a one-time World Tag Team Champion with CM Punk.
He debuted on the January 22, 2008 ECW as a face with a win over local wrestler David Owen in Charlottesville, Virginia.
After wrestling sporadic matches, Kingston was involved in his first major match, a 24-man battle royal during the WrestleMania XXIV pre-show with the winner receiving an ECW Championship match, but was eliminated by Mark Henry.
Kingston remained undefeated in singles competition in ECW for months and was placed into a feud with Shelton Benjamin at the end of April 2008.
After two straight losses, Benjamin got a win over Kingston on the May 20 ECW, ending his undefeated streak.
On the June 24 ECW, Kingston defeated Benjamin in an Extreme Rules match to end their feud.
On June 25, 2008, Kingston was drafted to the Raw brand, as part of the WWE Supplemental Draft.
In his first match as a member of Raw roster, and first championship match in WWE, he defeated Chris Jericho for the Intercontinental Championship at Night of Champions, after Shawn Michaels, whom Jericho was feuding with, attacked Jericho's manager Lance Cade.
2009
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.
2014
In 2014, he formed The New Day with Big E and Xavier Woods.
2015
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.
All totaled, Kingston is a 15-time tag team champion in WWE.
With the exception of a few months spent as a villain in 2015 with The New Day, Kingston has been a heroic character for almost the entirety of his WWE career.
Kingston has also gotten some distinction through his numerous methods of avoiding elimination during the Royal Rumble.
2019
In April 2019, Kingston defeated Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35 to win the WWE Championship, giving him 23 total championships in WWE.
He is the first, and currently only, African-born world champion in WWE history.
