Kofi Sarkodie-Mensah,(born in 1982) is a Ghanaian professional wrestler, better known under his ring name, Kofi Kingston. He is currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment working on the Raw brand, where he is the reigning WWE Intercontinental Champion.

Career
Early career
Born in Ghana to Ghanaian parents Elizabeth and Kwasi Sarkodie-Mensah, who is currently a lecturer at Boston College, his family moved to the United States in 1982. Coming from a member of a family of intellectuals from near Kumasi in Ghana, Sarkodie-Mensah was expected to become a teacher like his grandfather. Sarkodie-Mensah has no connection to Jamaica, but has long claimed to be Jamaican. According to Leslie Goffe of the BBC, "[Wrestling] fans would be more likely to embrace a wrestler from the land of Bob Marley and reggae music" than someone from Ghana.
A standout wrestler at Massachusetts' Winchester High School, Sarkodie-Mensah enrolled at Boston College. After completing a degree in communications, he first went into the corporate world - and almost immediately regretted it. "My first day at work I sat in my cubicle and looked at the empty walls and it was very depressing," he recalls. Sarkodie-Mensah decided to drop his business pursuits and opt to go into professional wrestling. "The first day I walked into the wrestling school, I knew I was in the right place," he says.
He made his professional debut in 2005.He competed primarily in the New England area, including stints in the Millennium Wrestling Federation, New England Championship Wrestling, the Eastern Wrestling Alliance, and Chaotic Wrestling under the ring name Kofi Nahaje Kingston.

World Wrestling Entertainment (2006-present)

Developmental territories
In September 2006, he signed a developmental contract with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and was assigned to Deep South Wrestling (DSW), a Georgia based developmental territory. He debuted in the new company, using the same ring name, in a dark match loss to Montel Vontavious Porter on September 21. For the rest of 2006 and the beginning of 2007 he appeared in DSW, as well as its Kentucky based sister promotion Ohio Valley Wrestling, where he was placed into a tag team dubbed the Commonwealth Connection with Harry Smith.
2007 was also his first exposure to the main WWE roster, when he worked dark matches on March 5 and 26 before episodes of WWE Raw against Charlie Haas and Trevor Murdoch respectively. For these appearances he used the ring name Kofi Jamaica. When he returned to the developmental territories he shortened his original ring name to Kofi Kingston, and continued to use both ring names throughout his duration there. That May he also worked house shows, defeating Shelton Benjamin in Greenville, South Carolina on the 5th, and Val Venis in Roanoke, Virginia on the 6th.
When Florida based developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling opened in June, Kingston was relocated there, appearing at their first show on June 26 teaming with Eric Perez against Keith Walker and Ryklon Stephens in a losing effort. Kingston worked there for most of the remainder of the year,until he was called up to the main WWE roster.

ECW brand
A series of vignettes for Kingston's television debut began airing on the weekly ECW television show starting on December 6, 2007.During this introduction phase the videos, official WWE website, and the ECW commentators all made note that he would be the first Jamaican-born person to wrestle for the company. He debuted on January 22, 2008 with a win over local wrestler David Owens. After wrestling sporadic matches, Kingston was involved in his first major match; a 24-man battle royal during the Wrestlemania XXIV pre-show with the winner receiving an ECW Championship match, but was eliminated by Mark Henry. Kingston remained undefeated in singles competition in ECW for months and was placed in to a feud with Shelton Benjamin at the end of April 2008. After two straight losses, Benjamin got a win over Kingston on the May 20 episode of ECW, though their feud continued until Kingston was sent to the Raw brand in the WWE Draft lottery.

Raw brand
As part of the 2008 WWE Supplemental Draft, Kingston was drafted to the Raw brand. At Night of Champions he defeated Chris Jericho to take the Intercontinental Championship in his first match as a member of the Raw roster.The win made him the first Ghanaian wrestler to hold a championship in World Wrestling Entertainment.

This info came from Wikipedia.org
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