Kofi Kingston Reportedly Injured, Will Still Defend WWE Championship at Extreme Rules Against Samoa Joe

Kofi Kingston will defend the WWE Championship against Samoa Joe on Sunday night at Extreme Rules, but it doesn't sound like he'll be at 100 percent. According to Wrestling Inc., Kingston announced during Monday's live show in Glens Falls, New York on Monday night that he was dealing with an injury, hence why he would not be competing alongside Xavier Woods and Big E in a tag match.

The site added that Kingston was reportedly injured the night before in a match against Dolph Ziggler in Binghamton, New York, adding that the injury was mild enough that the champ would not miss any time.

After working on the WWE's main roster for 11 years, Kingston finally earned himself a one-on-one WWE Championship shot at WrestleMania 35, where he beat Daniel Bryan to become world champion. Since then he's defended the title against Bryan, Ziggler and Kevin Owens. He remained undefeated as WWE Champion both on television and at live events until Samoa Joe knocked him out with a Coquina Clutch in a six-man tag match on the June 24 episode of Raw.

Since winning the title, Kingston has spoken in numerous interviews about the importance of becoming WWE's top champion.

"It means a lot, especially from a representation standpoint," Kingston said in an interview with USA TODAY back in April. "It's always important for people to be able to watch WWE, especially because it's a global product, it's important for people all over the world to be able to look at the screen and see somebody who looks like them doing great things. And in turn, that inspires them to do great things. For me to inspire people who look like me to do awesome things, and they can look at the screen and say 'hey, I can do this because I can see someone that looks like me and he's doing it.'

"It's equally as important too that people who don't necessarily look like me and can also look to my story for inspiration, because the main thing is I struggled, you know? To get here it's been a long, hard struggle to make it to this point, and anybody out there, whether you're black, white, Asian, South American, whatever, you can look to my story and see I struggled to get here but I kept fighting through," he continued. "I didn't give up, I didn't take no for an answer, and I did it. It took me a long time to do it, but I did it. Anything is possible for anybody if they work hard enough."