10 WWE Wrestlers Whose Patriotism Limited Their Potential

10. Kofi Kingston

Yes, there was indeed a time where Kofi Kingston was portrayed as a Jamaican stereotype, despite not having any roots to the country whatsoever. It didn't make sense to him. It didn't make sense to his fans. It didn't make sense to anyone, except for maybe Vince McMahon.

And even Vince, who signed off on the gimmick, referred to the vignettes hyping Kingston's debut on the ECW brand, which showed him walking around on a beach and saying there was “trouble in paradise”, as being “barely, barely passable". Yet he went through with it, anyway.

To his credit, Kingston owned the character the best he could, and you would have never known that his accent wasn't real. That said, it didn't help when the infamous Mike Adamle was constantly calling his matches with “Jamaican me crazy!” on commentary, and by then it was evident that he wouldn't get anywhere unless he dropped the fake Jamaican persona.

It wasn't until October 2009 that WWE finally began billing him from his native Ghana, and only a few weeks after that did they attempt to explain his lack of accent by having D-Generation members Triple H and Shawn Michaels call him out on it randomly on Raw.

He went on to win countless championships and is one-third of the WWE Tag Team champions as I write this, but he is worth mentioning on this list due to how of bad of a start he had as a result of his Jamaican character.