Kofi Kingston Reflects On Being An “Elder Statesman” In WWE, Time Left On Contract
As one of the older wrestlers on the WWE main roster, Kofi Kingston has reflected on what it’s like being an elder statesman in WWE these days.
Kofi Kingston has had an incredible run in WWE going back about 15 years when he made his main roster debut. Since then, he’s won the most Tag Team Titles in WWE history while also winning the WWE Championship in 2019. Most of that run has seen Kofi compete as a babyface other than about a year as a heel when The New Day first took off in 2015.
Currently, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods of The New Day are the NXT Tag Team Champions as they work with some younger WWE tag teams to help them get better. The New Day also regularly appears on Smackdown as well.
During a recent appearance on the Cheap Heat with Peter Rosenberg, Kofi noted he had a couple of years left on his contract, but he has no plans to stop wrestling.
“I don’t know. I have a couple of years left on my contract. I never say, ‘In two years I’m going to be done.’ We always get on Mark Henry about this because he said he was going to retire for 12 years. ‘I’m gonna be done after this year,’ and all of a sudden he comes out in his stuff, ‘Vince (McMahon) told me that they needed me, so I signed for another five years.’ Mark, come on man, you ain’t never retiring! We get on him about that.”
“This industry is so unique and so fun and such a short period of time in our lives, and I know it’s very hard to walk away. What a lot of people miss about it, and from being on the roster and what I’ve been told, they miss the camaraderie in the locker room. Even now, I see the transition happening where myself, Dolph (Ziggler), Miz, Randy (Orton), we’re kind of the elder statesmen.”
“Everyone else has gone through NXT, people who I didn’t come up with, so you see the natural transition happening, but the camaraderie in the locker room, it’s still there. Once that’s gone, you don’t really get it back. I’ve always said, as long as I’m having fun, I don’t want to be the guy who comes to work every day and is complaining about being there, ‘I’m not happy with a storyline, I’m pissed off about this.’”
“This job is so amazing that you should be feeling elated about it every single day. Obviously, there are ups and downs, we all know that, but overall, you shouldn’t be coming to work and having it weigh on yourself and you take it home and you’re mad about what’s going on at work and now the quality of your life isn’t what it should be.”
At 41 years of age, the married father of three Kofi Kingston has told his New Day brothers (Woods and Big E) that they are all in the same age bracket now while making it clear they want to work together after they retire as wrestlers.
“I told them this, and they’re starting to come around, once you get past 30, it’s all the same age bracket. Are they younger than me or are we all the same age? They might even be older than me. Woods has been working has been working in the industry for a very long time. He’s got like 27 years in the business. He’s the real veteran of the group. Am I older than him or not? Who is to say?”
“When it’s all said and done, we definitely want to continue to work with each other on an entertainment platform, whatever that looks like, we’re figuring that out. We take it one day at a time. We’ll see what happened when the contract expires and we’ll cross that bridge when it comes.”
The New Day’s next title defense will come at NXT Vengeance Day on Saturday, February 4th when they defend the titles against Gallus and Pretty Deadly, who are the former NXT Tag Team Champions.
H/t to Fightful