Kofi Kingston reacts to his WWE Championship loss to Brock Lesnar.
After losing his title to Lesnar in just seconds into their main event match on the Friday Night SmackDown premiere on FOX, Kingston went backstage and spoke with Cathy Kelley on his loss.
Although Kingston said he is feeling a lot of emotions, he doesn’t take away from the banner year that he has had from winning the WWE Championship at WrestleMania this year to successfully defending his title on a number of occasions. Kingston added that he is highly appreciative of the support he’s gotten before and after winning his first world title in WWE.
“It’s a lot of emotions, to be honest. You know that your championship reign is not gonna last forever. But to have it go out like that, against the man I was up against, maybe I was too anxious. I’ll go back and watch the tape and see where it went wrong, though there’s not much tape to watch. It is what it is. I’ve said it all along that Brock Lesnar was an enormous mountain to climb, but I pride myself on being up to the challenge and climb those mountains. No shame. I feel like I beat a lot of good competitors and there I say, great competitors like Daniel Bryan to Kevin Owens to Samoa Joe, even Sami Zayn. I wrestled AJ Styles and I came out on top over all of them. I just bring my all every single night. Tonight, I fell a bit short… There’s a lot of people that believed in me and tonight, I let them down, but I’m still very appreciative of the support that I’ve had since before ’Mania, since Elimination Chamber. The support from the WWE Universe has been incredible. I’m just so appreciative of all the love that I’ve felt over these last few months. It’s a crazy ride. My brothers The New Day support me the whole way so it is what it is. It doesn’t feel very good, but these trying situations is what make us grow,” Kingston said.
Kingston also talked about what happened immediately after the match, which was the surprise appearance from former UFC Heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez. Kingston said he isn’t surprised someone like Velasquez wants to try his hand and try to win the WWE Championship. Kingston doesn’t say much beyond that, still trying to make sense of what happened in his title loss.
“Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me because the WWE Title is the most coveted title in all of sports. Who doesn’t want to be adored by the fans? Who doesn’t want to go and be able to perform in front of a fanbase as energetic as the WWE Universe? I’ve heard rumors and I’ve seen some things and I know Cain Velasquez is a fan of what we do. I know he doesn’t like Brock Lesnar. Honestly, I’m not really surprised. It’s kind of interesting to see what happens. I think I’m still trying to process what I’ve lost right now before I start speculating on other people coming in and figuring out how I can get back to that title scene because it took me a very long time to get here. I just got to try and stay in the mix. If that road includes a Cain Velasquez in the middle of it, then so be it. We’ll cross that bridge when it comes there. It’s definitely interesting for sure. It’s just a testament to how big WWE has gotten,” Kingston said.
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