On the premiere of WWE SmackDown on FOX on October 4, 2019, Brock Lesnar squashed Kofi Kingston in seconds to capture the WWE Title. Kingston’s reign ended with KofiMania, where he won the title from Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35.
Many fans were taken aback by Lesnar’s squash victory over Kingston, which is still being discussed today. While some believe the squash was the result of Kingston’s lackluster title reign, former WWE writer Dave Schilling recently appeared on Fightful Overbooked’s In The Weeds and stated that the decision to have Lesnar squash Kingston was made within weeks of Kingston’s WrestleMania victory.
“I was there in 2019, I was on the home team on SmackDown. The thing that we were the most concerned with and most involved with was KofiMania,” Schilling said. “That was a storyline that traded on a lot of attitudes about race and ideas about who should or shouldn’t be the champion. I never felt like that storyline was disrespectful. I never felt that storyline was treated in a way where Kofi came off as a ‘token champion.’ That was a great storyline and I’m very proud of the small part I had to play in that. We can debate how it turned out in the end, when he lost to Brock Lesnar, which I found out about in April. We were talking about, ‘the plan is first SmackDown on FOX, Brock is going to come in and win the title and it’s going to be a quick match.’ That’s exactly what happened after I left. That’s the way it turned out. The writers in the room with me, were always incredibly aware of what we were doing and why it was important.”
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