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NewsWWE Hosts Roundtable Celebrating Modern-Day African American WWE Champions

WWE Hosts Roundtable Celebrating Modern-Day African American WWE Champions

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WWE has released a special roundtable video, celebrating the three African-American WWE Champions of the modern era.

Since 2019, Kofi Kingston, Bobby Lashley and Big E have all held the WWE title, years after The Rock (who’s half-black / half-Samoan,) first won the title in 1998.

In the video, host Byron Saxton asks the three former Champions about their title wins, with Kingston saying that his showing at Elimination Chamber 2019 was the “crazy” catalyst for KofiMania.

“Obviously winning the WWE Championship, for me, when the ref’s hand hit the mat for the third time, I was like ‘whoa, this is real.’ And my eyes popped out of my head, legit just genuine shock. I get a lot of people on social media still talking about how it affected them, and I’m just so grateful to be at the center of all of that.”

Bobby Lashley called his victory over The Miz in March 2021 a “cool day” but that his title win didn’t really hit home until days later. He said,

“You kind of can’t imagine how it’s supposed to feel. But for me, it was the next couple of days. I was getting calls from people I hadn’t heard from in years. From Panama, my uncle. He’s over there jumping up and down in Panama. They bring the flag over in the air, saying ‘you’ve got to take a picture with the flag! Everyone is so proud of you!’”

Big E, who beat Lashley for the title last September thanked the Almighty for making his title win extra special.

“Thank you (Bobby) for that moment. One of the reasons, there’s so many reasons that KofiMania is special, and I think one of the reasons is because of the opponent, because of Daniel Bryan being an all-time great. And I think one of the reasons that moment was so special for me was because I beat you. The way you had dominated people, the run you had, the fact that I was watching you in 2009, trying to pattern my eventual style after you, that meant a lot for me.”