10 Wrestling Mistakes & Botches That Became Storylines

9. “Stupid!” Kofi Kingston

Kofi Kingston gained a lot of fan support towards the end of 2009 after moving to Raw and ditching the Jamaican accent/gimmick. He would captain a Survivor Series team that would defeat Team Orton (Randy Orton, CM Punk, Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase and William Regal), with Kofi being the sole survivor after delivering Trouble in Paradise to Orton. Kofi broke out in his feud with Randy Orton, participating in star-making angles where he destroyed Orton's custom-made NASCAR car and sent him crashing through a table at Madison Square Garden that popped the crowd huge.

Kofi would fall into trouble in January 2010 on an episode of Raw though when he took on Orton and John Cena in a Triple Threat to see would face Sheamus for the WWE Championship at that month’s Royal Rumble pay per view. A miscommunication in the match led to Kofi not staying down on the mat for a punt kick, which resulted in Orton getting legitimately furious at Kofi. Orton shoved Kofi and delivered a devesting RKO as he yelled “Stupid!” directly at Kofi. There were rumours for years this mistake led to Orton politicking to have Kofi held back for years in WWE.

When Kofi finally climbed the ranks to win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35 he would go on to feud with Orton on the SmackDown brand. In a promo Orton would appear on the Titantron and echoed back to 10 years ago, repeatedly calling Kofi stupid. Kofi would say in video packages hyping their PPV matches: “It wasn’t enough just to beat me.

In his mind, he wanted to humiliate me too. There were always rumours that it was Randy who had used his influence to hold me back.” With Orton replying “You know, I did hold Kofi Kingston down. Because Kofi wasn’t on my level. When you p*** me off, you get sent right back to the bottom of the ladder.” It was a case of WWE retconning a mistake to improve a feud.