BBC NEWS AFRICA reporter Leslie Goffe has ripped into WWE
Intercontinental Champion Kofi Kingston, saying so desperate is
(Kofi) to become wrestling's next superstar, he is willing to deny who he
is.
It's really an interesting story, not the typical "rip 'em up" article one
would expect. This is really the must-read story of the day, and you can check
it out in its entirety
HERE .
To millions of US wrestling fans, Kofi Kingston is the first
Jamaican wrestler in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). But his real identity
is very different - because to his family and friends, he is Kofi
Sarkodie-Mensah from Ghana.
Most wrestling fans have never heard of the West African country, so
the wrestling body decided fight fans would be more likely to embrace a wrestler
from the land of Bob Marley and reggae music.
And so desperate is Sarkodie-Mensah to become wrestling's next
superstar, he is willing to deny who he is.
"I was actually born in Jamaica - to be honest with a name like Kofi
a lot of people assume I was born in Ghana," he says with a bad Jamaican accent,
but doing his best to stay in character.
But though he denies it, his mother Elizabeth - the head of a
Ghanaian-American organisation in the US - confirms that he was indeed born in
Ghana, and not in Jamaica. The family only moved to the US in 1982.
"I told him: 'Kofi, your cousins watch you on TV in Ghana and want to
know why you don't say you're from Ghana,'" she says.
"He said: 'Tell them it is business.'"
Suit swapped
It certainly is business.
After he discovered his mother had revealed his secret identity to
the press, Sarkodie-Mensah banned her and the rest of his family from speaking
to the media, for fear of compromising his career.
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|
KOFI KINGSTON
Real name Kofi Sarkodie-Mensah
Born 1982 in Ghana
Fight debut in 2005
Moves include 'Trouble in Paradise' - a spinning
kick to the head - and the 'Soul Shakedown' - a double-leg drop straight
to the midsection followed by a shake of the hips over the fallen
opponent.
Has so far lost only one match-up, to Shelton
Benjamin
|
"She's very happy I am doing what I want to do," he says
of his mother. "But I don't think she knows how big wrestling really is."
Spinning people around by their necks and slamming their
heads into the ground is not how Sarkodie-Mensah, who is the only African in
big-time wrestling in the United States, thought he would earn his living.
A member of a family of intellectuals from near Kumasi in
Ghana, he was expected to become a revered teacher like his grandfather.
But he first went into the corporate world - and almost
immediately regretted it.
"My first day at work I sat in my cubicle and looked at the
empty walls and it was very depressing," he recalls.
The 27-year-old soon decided to swap his business suit for
bright yellow wrestler's trunks.
"The first day I walked into the wrestling school, I knew I
was in the right place," he says.
So far, Sarkodie-Mensah has made all the right moves.
Since his debut in January, he has "won" all but one of his
100 matches on the Extreme Championship Wrestling circuit, an offshoot of WWE
which launched the careers of the likes of Hulk Hogan and The Rock.
WWE is convinced Sarkodie-Mensah has what it takes to make
it to the top in the scripted world of US professional wrestling - dismissed by
some as more soap opera than sport.
'Concussion in the face'
But although professional wrestling has its detractors,
Sarkodie-Mensah's father, Kwasi, is not one of them.
Mr Sarkodie-Mensah, a lecturer at Boston College in the US,
says though many of his friends in Ghana were disappointed that his son became a
wrestler rather than an academic like his parents, he is happy his son has found
contentment in his career.
"I know it is a very anti-intellectual thing, but I think
everybody should get up in the morning and be excited about what they do," he
says.
But Mr Sarkodie-Mensah's friends in Ghanaian academia, like
Raymond Osei-Boadu of the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, are
horrified.
"I cannot bring myself to understand," says a disconsolate
Mr Osei-Boadu.
"Why would a person who is very capable of going to graduate
school decide to jettison all that for concussion in the face?"
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