Kofi Kingston
The Cereal. The Pancakes. And now these shooooes!
Kofi Kingston is still WWE Champion.
Sometimes dreams live on.
That is all.
There is an infamous YouTube of CM Punk at a Comic Con, talking about riding along with Kofi Kingston.
Suddenly, they get pulled over by the cops.
These guys don’t exactly look like Ned Flanders and his Cheerio O friendly neighborhood citizens.
A white guy with tattoos, all over the place, literally all over the place. I don’t have tattoos, and when I see CM Punk, I’m sure I made the right call.
Then you got Kofi Kingston.
New York City’s finest cocaine dealer, Kofi Kingston, you want the stuff you can get the stuff at “Kofi’s Corner.”
Kofi’s career in the WWE is about as storyline perfect as it gets, but the cops probably didn’t know that then.
Apparently everything turns out okay, but you can imagine an officer pulling up and seeing these two guys on I-5 near Bakersfield, California or some place like that. These guys are up to no good.
Hold on, let me get a better picture of CM Punk.
Now that’s more like it.
I’ve had more than my fair share of encounters with law enforcement. Some of my closest friends have spent time in prison or juvenile detention, it just is what it is. They’re not bad people, but just caught up in some stuff.
Quite frankly, my father is in prison.
It made the papers in London, you can read about it.
That’s how you know your last name means something, when every paper from New York to Boston to London writes about your father.
Again my dad is not a bad person.
But just caught up in some stuff.
Anyways, back in summer of 2017 I spent a week in jail in Vegas. I actually wrote about it on here couple years ago.
Apparently it is against law to ride scooters or skateboards on sidewalks in Las Vegas. I was there for a conference actually, basically accomplished guys on a panel talking about a range of topics from business to health to women.
I loved it.
Anyways, I’m riding my scooter all around Vegas.
I get pulled over by these younger cops, pretty sure they were learning since they didn’t have official uniforms and looked very young in polo shirts.
“Can I have your ID.”
At that point, I’m thinking to myself for what purpose?
I’ve always had problems with authority figures, or people I don’t personally know or respect imposing themselves on you.
I actually didn’t have my ID, so I used it as an excuse to not tell them.
John Doe baby.
To be fair, they would’ve let me go but I got mad and proceeded to argue with them. “Listen man, if you gonna take my ass to jail then take my ass to jail and we gonna figure it out there.” — Mark Namkoong.
Eventually, things cooled down.
I’m in back of the police interceptor, handcuffed.
They pulled out a book about regulations with a section on scooters, that’s when I realized there was a reason for getting pulled over with flashing lights. For some reason, I still didn’t tell them my name.
7 Days later, I threw in the towel.
I think I got cited for “unruly behavior” or something like that, but all charges were dropped. They took my expensive scooter though.
Haven’t been to jail since.
I mean that cell was bonkers, you basically this big guy that looked like Randy Orton. Dude was the apex of that cell, you could tell everyone was scared of him and he ran the whole thing.
Other dudes looked like Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods.
I got lucky though, because the other cells had legitimate crazy people.
Imagine a long rectangle, perhaps 15 foot by 5 foot, with fifteen dudes inside. The other cells had legitimate crazy people, while our cell had relatively easy going people.
We talked for like 4 days, and then everyone went their separate ways.
Then came the actual “prison” cells.
I highly advise you don’t drink and drive or do drugs in Vegas.
Because you’ll be in a holding cell with violent criminals, people who are serving years long sentences or gang members who are there temporarily in holding cells before they go somewhere else.
Randy Orton guy looked just like Randy Orton.
Tattoo sleeves, long ass white boy arms, muscles, etc.
Legit 6'4 or 6'3 250 pounds.
“How’d you get so big” — Someone asks.
“I got big in county” — Randy Orton guy.
I’ll be honest, I started getting recognized (not all but some) and I think I got some credibility points or something, so nobody really messed with me. Everyone was cool, but other cells had people screaming and stuff.
Like I said, don’t drink and drive in Vegas.
I was at Dodger Stadium this week, and a similar situation happened.
I’m there by myself, and of course some security guy (not police) makes it his life purpose to follow me around and watch everything I’m doing. Some kid my age of course, clearly looking for an agenda.
Maybe because I have a hood on, maybe I look suspicious who knows.
Maybe it was the Oakland Raiders gear.
By the 7th inning, the guy asks for my ticket.
Okay.
They were not expensive tickets, but reaching into my pockets I can’t find it.
“I lost it.”
“You need to have a ticket.”
“Sorry brother, I’m about to leave anyways.”
I get a sense things are getting weird, so I’m legitimately leaving. The guy follows me out the gate, then Dodger Stadium is a mammoth to navigate. Dude follows from behind for legitimate five minutes.
Dude asks me for my ID, presumably so he can take a picture of it or write it down. That’s not something I’m comfortable with.
He calls the other security guys.
Eventually, I spot actual police walking with his security dog nearby.
I actively seek him out.
I explain the situation, and then all the security guys start backing off. That’s interesting, if something was wrong I would’ve been stopped.
Next day, whole situation repeats itself.
“Sir, you’ve got your ticket.”
“Yes, here it is.”
“Okay, we need your ID.”
“Sorry, don’t got it.”
Actually I did have it, but I wasn’t going to give it out. So I gave them wrong name and address and stuff, and left again after the 2nd inning. This time there are 6 security guys and couple police.
They let me go.
I’m leaving, and I spot other security guys on their radio looking my way and communicating my location.
So I’m still being watched.
Yikes.
The point is guys like Kofi Kingston have always been targets, that’s just the simple truth even now.
When you’re getting pulled over, you have no control whatsoever.
No objective witnesses either.
The police officer can do whatever the hell he wants, and all it takes is one wrong move or bad mood for something bad to happen.
There are talks of WWE’s developmental brand NXT moving to FS1. This is to counter AEW’s move to TNT this fall.
FS1’s Rob Parker gave a story of working in Detroit years ago, which is where Parker is based. Driving in a decent neighborhood, Parker was pulled over by cops on multiple occasions.
For no reason.
But of course, we know the reason.
Wrestling is a reflection of society.
The wrestling business is sometimes behind the times, and slow. There are other moments when it captures exactly the right ingredients, that makes it greater than just two guys in tights.
It represents someone fighting the system.
And therefore changing it.
It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you look like, etc.
I’ve got friends that look like Kofi and CM Punk.
I don’t watch wrestling week to week anymore, but you bet your ass with two Stone Cold beers I’ll be watching this Sunday.
#NewDay
