10 Most Absurdly Mismatched Gimmicks In WWE

Let’s be realistic: Kofi Kingston isn’t now, and never has been a high flyer.

It’s no knock on the man himself. Kofi Sarkodie-Mensah is a fine wrestler and performer, far better as a character and a promo than he’s ever given credit for. He was a convincing uppercard opponent for Randy Orton in 2009, and he's always been a credible presence in the midcard (and perhaps even the main event, as his recent showings opposite Daniel Bryan have demonstrated).

But as a top rope performer - especially one earmarked to pull off dicey spots in gimmick matches - Kofi just doesn’t fly.

He can certainly jump. His vertical leap is incredibly impressive. Actually, much of Kingston’s moveset is prefixed by the word ‘leaping’: the leaping clothesline, the leaping back elbow, etc. Then there are the various crossbodies and splashes, which essentially involve jumping from high things onto people: what CM Punk refers to as ‘throwing yourself at the ground’.

All of that might have qualified him as a high flyer in the eighties, or even the early nineties. Today? When Pac, Ricochet and countless other men can regularly pull off reverse 450 shooting star corkscrew plancha moonsault ranas, throwing themselves into perfectly formed complex kamikaze shapes like they were bitten by radioactive lemmings… well, Kofi’s enthusiastic bounding about doesn’t really cut it.