10 Great WWE Championship Reigns (That Ended In The Worst Way Possible)

Even the most ardent of Kofi Kingston fans had given up on him ever climbing to the top of the mountain. Dismissed as midcard for life, Kingston seemed to have settled into a comfortable role as a popular tag team performer, consistently winning titles with his New Day colleagues and cementing an influential career along the way. Then 2018 to 2019 happened, and what had been forgotten had finally come true. Kofi Kingston was WWE Champion.

While his championship reign wasn’t the greatest in the history of the prestigious title, it’ll go down as a pretty darn good run. Kingston defended the title against a variety of opponents over the course of his six months as champion, having good to great matches against Samoa Joe, Kevin Owens, Dolph Ziggler and Randy Orton. It wasn’t going to last forever, but it was all sorts of enjoyable while it did.

It certainly deserved more than to end in the most squished of squash matches. A lifetime of hard work and dedication led Kofi to the promised land, but his time at the top came to an end in just seven seconds. That was all it took for Kingston to literally run into an F-5 from Brock Lesnar, kicking off the new wretched era of SmackDown in depressingly apt style.