BC Alum Kofi Kingston Wins WWE Championship At Wrestlemania 35

In arguably the biggest match of the night, Boston College alum Kofi Kingston (real name Kofi Nahaje Sarkodie-Mensah) won the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania 35 in a fantastic match against Daniel Bryan. Mensah, who graduated from BC, and whose father is currently a librarian at the O’Neill Library, has been with the WWE for 11 years.

I know many of you probably don’t follow wrestling, but this was a huge deal, and big for Kingston. For years he had toiled as a character from Jamaica before, where he had moderate success including reigns with the Intercontinental Championship, but he really found his groove with Xavier Woods and Big E Langston, forming the hugely popular New Day tag team. But even with that success, he never was elevated to the top, until this year.

When Mustapha Ali went down, Kofi was entered into the Elimination Chamber PPV, where he came inches away from winning the WWE Championship. The fans got behind him, and the WWE strapped a rocket ship to him, and tonight was that crowning moment. Another big reason this is so big, is that Kofi is one of the first African American champions. The Rock, Booker T, and Mark Henry all won championships as well, but Booker and Mark never won the big title.

Congrats Kofi!