Kofi Kingston had heard the story and ones like it many times from his mother.
It’s of a teacher from their native Ghana showing students what a computer is by using rocks to represent monitors, keyboards, and the mouse. The WWE star found it hard to wrap his head around so Kingston and his mom, Elizabeth Sarkodie-Mensah, chose to do something about it starting in 2021. They began raising money to start building learning centers and computer labs for junior high schools in Ghana. The first one is close to completion and they are turning to the public to help with funding after other prospective donations fell through.
“Technology is only getting more and more prevalent, how can there be places where kids don’t even know what computers are or haven’t been to a library before high school?” the 41-year-old Kingston said in a phone interview. “At the very least, we wanted to present kids in Ghana with the opportunity that everybody else has.”
To do so, Kingston and his mom officially launched the CLICK for Quality of Education Foundation in October. It is currently running a GoFundMe trying to raise $30,000 to finish the project started at Atwima Takyiman Presbyterian Junior High School in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. It will house a 50-laptop computer laboratory and a 100-capacity library. The school serves as a central junior high school to the community, which will allow numerous smaller schools to also use the facility.
“I think in the United State and all over the world, we just take for granted the things that we have,” said Kingston, who moved to the U.S. from Ghana at a very young age. “We’ll be complaining about the reception in our cellphones or our TV satellite is off. Then you forget that there are places in the world where people don’t have access to the very basics that we do.”
The building itself has been built and furnished. The current donations he’s asking for now will go toward the actual laptops for students, charging stations and the operational costs for the building as well as the cost of shipping everything to Ghana. He asked that even if people can’t directly donate to spread the word about the project.
“If you should feel compelled enough in your heart to be able to give, every little bit counts and I think when it’s all said and done we’ll all be able to come together and do something special for these kids,” Kingston said.
Back in WWE, he and New Day partner Xavier Woods are currently trying to do the same thing in a different way for the young talent in NXT. Kingston said they were “specially requested” to the developmental brand by NXT boss Shawn Michaels. The 15-time tag champion in WWE sees it as a chance to give back to up-and-coming talent. He feels he and Woods are “comforting” examples for those in NXT that careers can go through peaks and valleys before potentially finding the type of sustained success they have had now. They had to “work for it.”
“Shawn Michaels was my guy, so anything he asks me to do I’m gonna do it,” Kingston said. “It was an honor to be asked, to be summoned by Shawn Michaels to NXT because he’s Shawn Michaels, but it’s always something we wanted to do. We always wanted to go down there and mix it up with Pretty Deadly.”
Kingston noted that he and Woods were impressed by the team of Elton Prince and Kit Wilson during their NXT UK days and felt “these guys have it” because of their ability to garner genuine reactions from the audience. New Day beat them for the tag titles at the NXT Deadline pay-per-view last month and Kingston wrestled a single match with Prince two weeks ago.
“They were able to come out and get booed out of the building without even saying a word,” Kingston said. “Then they finally started talking and the boos got louder. That is half the battle.”
They also had a match with Brooks Jensen and Josh Briggs and will defend their titles against Gallus and Pretty Deadly at NXT Vengeance Day on Feb. 4. New Day, however, hasn’t been able to wrestle as much as they had hoped in NXT with Woods dealing with injuries. Kingston said Woods is “getting better and better” every week” and they are utilizing this time to get him back to being 100 percent.
“We are able to progress our storyline and let him rest and recover,” Kingston said. “He’ll be good in no time. He’s made a lot of progress already.”
As New Day looks to get its footing in NXT, WWE has undergone major changes at the top in recent weeks and possibly in its future. Vince McMahon has returned as executive chairman after a short-lived retirement, Stephanie McMahon has resigned as co-CEO and chairwoman and WWE is actively pursuing a potential sale of the company. As someone who has been with WWE since 2006, Kingston has seen plenty of ups, downs and uncertainty along the way and views this in a similar light.
“It’s great that Vince is back,” Kingston said. “Obviously when he left, there was a huge void, especially for me. Ever since I’ve been on the roster, WWE without Vince was unconscionable. When he stepped down, it was like ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t believe this is happening. Is this actually really real?’ But also it was great to have a bit of a change with Triple H at the helm, being able to do things in the way that he did and Stephanie and [CEO] Nick Khan. It’s always good in WWE to have change. Now that Vince is back, it’s change again.”
He noted that WWE superstars’ job always stays the same, to put great matches for people and make memories for the fans. In a lot of ways, he see things as “business as usual” for them.
“Our roles doesn’t really change at all,” Kingston said. “We show up and we figure out how to tell the best stories possible and we go out there and we execute and we’re going to continue to do that. You know, we bask in the excitement that is the uncertainty of what happens in WWE.”
As things play out on the leadership side WWE, the talent is in Royal Rumble season, with the event scheduled for Jan. 28 at the Alamodome. Kingston has had a unique place in the Rumble match’s history as year after year he’s been able to pull off some remarkable elimination saves before his attempt in 2022 didn’t go as planned. He said he doesn’t feel any added pressure this year to make sure he sticks his attempt even with the event close to his home in Austin and his kids set to attend the first Royal Rumble.
“You’re bound to mess one up, that’s just the way things go,” Kingston said. “There might a little bit [of pressure]. Honestly, it can’t go worse than last year. It is what it is.”
For the first 10 years of saves, Kingston said he and Hornswoggle would come up with ideas for him to do at the Rumble. Now, it’s gotten to a stage where people are coming to him with scenarios for him to consider trying.
“I just look forward to doing something unique for the people and provide them a moment they can talk about whether it be me being successful in one or not,” he said. “Mission accomplished last year as well when you think about the big picture.”
One thing he and Woods weren’t able to do was stop The Usos from breaking New Day’s record as the longest-reigning WWE tag team champions. Given the team’s storied rivalry, they were grateful to be The Usos’ last match – on the Nov. 11 SmackDown – before usurping their record. It was something he and Woods “we were pretty adamant about wanting to be able to do (that).”
“It just makes that moment a lot more special,” Kingston said. “In the history of WWE when you think about the grand storylines in the history of the company, for anyone to connect some dots like that is really a beautiful thing in terms of storytelling. I’m definitely happy we were the ones to be able to pass that torch, for lack of a better turn, to The Usos.”
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