WrestleMania 35: 5 biggest questions if Kofi Kingston wins the WWE Championship

Kofi Kingston will challenge Daniel Bryan for the WWE Championship in one of the most anticipated matches of WrestleMania 35.

The New Day member became involved in the WWE title picture in early February when he was confirmed as a late replacement for the injured Mustafa Ali in the six-man Elimination Chamber match.

Five days prior to the pay-per-view, Kingston lasted over an hour in a gauntlet match involving the six Chamber participants before he was eliminated by AJ Styles. From there, ‘KofiMania’ took over and fans became more and more supportive of the former Intercontinental champion, especially after he came milliseconds away from defeating Bryan inside the Chamber.

Vince McMahon has even gotten involved in the storyline, notably before Fastlane when he removed Kingston from his one-on-one match against Bryan at the event and replaced him with Kevin Owens (and later Ali).

Since then, the WWE chairman has done everything in his power to prove that Kingston is merely a “B+ Player”, even making him (and his fellow New Day members) compete in gauntlet matches to book his ticket to WrestleMania. In the end, Big E and Xavier Woods helped their friend become the #1 contender again by winning a tag team gauntlet match, making Bryan vs. Kingston official for April 7.

In this article, let’s take a look at five of the biggest questions that will need answering if, as expected, Kingston wins at MetLife Stadium.

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#5 Will he have a short title reign?

AJ Styles held the WWE Championship for 371 days between November 2017 and November 2018. The interesting thing about his reign was that not only did he become the longest-reigning WWE champion in SmackDown history, but he was a babyface the entire time.

Modern-day babyface champions rarely hold WWE’s top titles for a lengthy period of time. In fact, Styles was the first good-guy WWE champion to hold the title for longer than 100 days since John Cena’s 133-day reign was ended by Daniel Bryan at SummerSlam 2013.

Given that Styles broke the mould for a modern-day holder of one of WWE’s top titles, it will be interesting to see if Kingston enjoys a reign lasting 100+ days or if his title victory will simply be seen as a ‘WrestleMania moment’, as opposed to the start of a lengthy tenure as champion.

#4 Will the title victory overshadow the main event?

Ronda Rousey, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch will do battle for the Raw and SmackDown Women’s Championships in the first women’s main event in WrestleMania history. The match received a suitably chaotic build-up on the final episode of Raw before ‘Mania, with all three women getting arrested after assaulting police officers.

Now that the historic match is confirmed to be the show’s main event, the pressure is on for Rousey, Flair and Lynch to produce one of the greatest women’s matches of all time.

As for Daniel Bryan and Kofi Kingston, there are no doubts as to whether their match will deliver – both men have stolen the show in their recent encounters – and many fans wanted the WWE Championship match to headline WrestleMania 35 instead of Rousey vs. Flair vs. Lynch.

So, if Kingston does indeed win the WWE Championship from Bryan, there is a very real possibility that his title triumph will end up overshadowing the women’s Triple Threat.

#3 Will The New Day split up?

Kofi Kingston finally booked his ticket to WrestleMania 35 when Big E and Xavier Woods won a tag team gauntlet match on SmackDown Live to help their fellow New Day member earn a WWE Championship match against Daniel Bryan.

Throughout Kingston’s chase to become the #1 contender for Bryan’s title, the rest of The New Day has been nothing but supportive. But, as is the case in WWE, you just never know when somebody is about to betray a close ally, so many fans have been predicting that this storyline could lead to Big E and/or Woods turning heel on their fellow faction member.

Bryan vs. Kingston appears to be all set up for Kingston to win the WWE Championship, despite whatever fan theories are out there about The New Day potentially interfering in the match.

Beyond WrestleMania, however, it will be interesting to see if Big E and Woods will remain loyal to Kingston, or if they will attempt to take advantage of his success by attempting to elevate themselves to the WWE Championship picture as possible opponents for the potential new champion.

#2 Will fans acknowledge that WWE fulfilled their promise?

On the December 17, 2018 episode of Monday Night Raw, Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H discussed WWE’s drop in ratings and vowed to give fans what they want in future, including “new faces and new match-ups”.

The ‘new faces’ part of that statement has not exactly gone down well – only Aleister Black and Ricochet have made an impact out of the nine NXT call-ups – but WWE has certainly made efforts to try to give fans what they want at WrestleMania 35.

Of course, there are some exceptions, such as Kurt Angle vs. Baron Corbin, but several matches that have been set up for this year’s “Show of Shows” were driven by fans: Becky Lynch’s inclusion in the main event, “Demon” Finn Balor, Seth Rollins’ return to the Universal title scene, and Kofi Kingston’s ascent to the WWE Championship.

If Rollins, Lynch and Kingston leave WrestleMania 35 as champions, there will be no denying that WWE fulfilled their promise of trying to appease fans.

#1 Will the WWE and Universal titles merge?

The Women’s Tag Team titles were introduced in February 2019 as the only main-roster championships that can be defended across both brands. Since then, we have seen Sasha Banks & Bayley appear on all three of WWE’s main shows – Raw, SmackDown Live and NXT – while The IIconics have even competed on Raw, despite being SmackDown Live roster members.

With WWE making the switch to dual-brand PPVs after WrestleMania 34, we have seen more Superstars feature on both Raw and SmackDown Live over the last year than at any time since the 2016 brand split: Banks, Bayley, The IIconics, Kevin Owens, John Cena, Triple H, Rey Mysterio, Alexa Bliss, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, The Big Show, Matt Hardy, Shelton Benjamin, Brie Bella, all nine recent NXT call-ups… the list goes on!

Short-term, WWE is planning another Superstar Shake-Up for April 15-16. Long-term, the roster split seems redundant, especially with the Raw and SmackDown Women’s Championships being on the line in the same match at WrestleMania 35.

Regardless of whether or not Kofi Kingston wins the WWE Championship on Sunday, it will be intriguing to find out if WWE plans to keep the WWE and Universal Championships separate for much longer.