Kofi Kingston will ride his current wave of momentum right into a singles match with Daniel Bryan for the WWE Championship next month.
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During the closing moments of this week’s SmackDown Live, Shane McMahon made the announcement that Bryan would defend the title against Kingston at WWE Fastlane on March 10th in Cleveland, Ohio.
The announcement followed a six man tag team match that included all six men who took part in Sunday’s Elimination Chamber match. Kingston, AJ Styles, and Jeff Hardy took on Bryan, Randy Orton, and Samoa Joe. In the end, it was Kofi pinning Bryan following a Trouble In Paradise to secure the victory.
Kofi’s victory over Bryan on SmackDown was the impetus for Shane’s decision to have the two square off at Fastlane in a storyline sense, but the decision to make the match involved WWE doing a 180 during backstage meetings when it came to what they had initially planned for Fastlane. This was the result of what has been an incredible week for Kingston.
WWE had been advertising a triple threat between Bryan, Styles, and Joe for Fastlane locally in Cleveland for several weeks now, and according to Dave Meltzer, as of Monday morning, WWE still had no plans of inserting Kingston into the bout.
However, following his performance last week on SmackDown in the gauntlet match and on Sunday at Elimination Chamber, added in with the incredible momentum Kingston has been feeling from the live crowds and on social media, WWE eventually decided to make the switch and go with the hot hand.
It’s happening.
Per @shanemcmahon, #TheNew @WWEDanielBryan will defend his title against @TrueKofi at #WWEFastlane!!! #SDLive pic.twitter.com/okYjrSGYI0
— WWE (@WWE) February 20, 2019
Right now, Kingston has a feel to him similar to the career rejuvenation that Becky Lynch sparked last summer. It will be quite interesting to see what direction WWE goes in with SmackDown’s top prize following Fastlane.
The latest reports suggest that Bryan will be carrying the WWE Championship into WrestleMania to defend it against a returning major star, but at the same time, if Kingston’s momentum continues to build in the coming weeks, it’s not hard to imagine WWE putting the championship on him for the first time in his career and taking this story all the way to WrestleMania 35.
