Kofi Kingston vs. Brock Lesnar makes sense for business and storyline

Best for business and best for storyline collide as Brock Lesnar is positioned as the next challenger for Kofi Kingston’s WWE Championship.

As of now, Kofi Kingston has been WWE Champion for over five months. He has, as promised, been a fighting champion and has bested all who have come for him: Kevin Owens, Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, Sami Zayn,  Dolph Ziggler, Samoa Joe and, most recently, Randy Orton, capping off a 10-year long feud that was fueled, in part, by real-life animosity between the two men.

There has been a unifying thread to all of Kingston’s title-defense storylines — opponents who doubt the legitimacy of his championship, his worthiness of being the top Superstar on SmackDown Live and his ability to win high-stakes matches without the help of his New Day brothers, Big E and Xavier Woods. One by one he’s proved these foes wrong, retaining his championship convincingly while continuing to have the crowd’s unwavering support.

The spring and summer — and now approaching autumn — of #Kofimania has been one of the surprises and then highlights of all of WWE programming and storylines and it’s a credit both to Kingston’s staying power and the thoughtfulness of the company itself that he’s been able to be WWE Champion for this long.

But where else does Kingston go? Step by step, he’s taken on serious challenger after more serious challenger, and now by putting away the man who has been his career-long antagonist, how much more difficult and intense can it get for Kingston now?

Those questions were answered this week on SmackDown Live by the most logical person — or pairing — who could: Brock Lesnar, and his advocate, Paul Heyman. Lesnar and Heyman challenged Kingston for the WWE Championship on October 4, the date of SmackDown‘s debut on FOX and Kingston (again, the fighting champion) accepted. It’s on.

While this makes obvious good ratings sense, given the magnitude of SmackDown moving from the USA Network to FOX and the number of eyes WWE wants on the show, particularly on its network debut, it also makes perfect storyline sense. Lesnar is the biggest, baddest Big Bad WWE has and after Lesnar has fallen twice to Seth Rollins, it’s only natural that he’d set his sights on Kingston and his WWE Championship rather than keep pursuing Rollins and the Universal title.

In WWE, Lesnar is the ultimate endgame. There is only so high a Superstar’s peak (or at least a male Superstar’s peak) can get before Lesnar is placed in his way as his biggest test and obstacle. Kingston, meanwhile, has proven to be one of the biggest underdog successes since Bryan in WrestleMania 30 season. Even as champion, he’s been positioned as an underdog, and there’s no doubt that will be an undercurrent in his feud with Lesnar.

And, at least as of now, it doesn’t look like WWE is going to let this be a one-off event. Per Wrestling Inc., Kingston and Lesnar are being advertised for a “face to face” confrontation at the November 15 edition of SmackDown, set for Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Arena.

Of course, cards are subject to change and this could simply be a red herring planted by WWE to keep us guessing about what happens on October 4 and thereafter, but if taken as facts then it appears that the Kingston-Lesnar program could continue through Hell in a Cell and during the run-up for Survivor Series. That obviously also does not indicate who WWE plans to be champion at that point, but whether it’s Kingston or Lesnar (with Kingston chasing the title), it’s possible this feud becomes the centerpiece of the blue brand this fall.

WWE knows that Lesnar equals money, just as Kingston and The New Day have been sources of profit for the company. So putting the two together makes business sense. But given the run that Kingston has had as WWE Champion thus far, pitting him against Lesnar also makes storyline sense. It’s a win for both Superstars, for WWE and most importantly, the fans.