10 Worst Wrestling World Title Reigns Ever
6. Kofi Kingston - April 17, 2019 To October 4, 2019
There's a nuanced take here: Kofi Kingston's quality, creativity and ability to stay over for an astonishing amount of time - in, no less, an utterly f*cked system that has never spammed more sh*tty content - deserved the reward of his genuinely beautiful WrestleMania 35 story.
He was also, and again, the creative direction damns most, not a great World Champion.
Deep into the slogs that were WWE's pre-lockdown Network Era pay-per-views, Kofi failed to spark exhausted and or exasperated crowds into life with matches very much midcard in flavour. Good, but not great, only nominally World Title matches, there was nothing in the heft, heat, nor even match lengths to project the idea that Kingston had truly ascended to a new level. Part of the problem was that Kingston, as part of that immaculate journey, had already played it overwrought - where it had been earned - and there was nowhere else to really go dramatically without descending into melodrama.
Glorified TV matches with Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe - the latter of which was built with a laziness appalling even by WWE's modern standards - bookended a series with Dolph Ziggler that exposed the inability of both men to work the long main event style. The Cage match at Stomping Grounds was a tedious slog. The Randy Orton programme was solid, thoroughly unexciting fare.
WWE is excoriated for its obsession with "Moments," but Kofi's reign precisely was that.