MVP Credits Recent WWE Champion With Furthering Black Representation

When Kofi Kingston defeated Bryan Danielson to win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35, one of the more enduring memories surrounding this historic moment was former WWE star Shad Gaspard posting a glimpse of himself and MVP emotionally reacting to the victory. The moment has even more poignancy now — three years after Gaspard's death – though at first, MVP wasn't in favor of the video going public.

Discussing Kingston's title victory — which he called an important moment — with YoJoshMartinez, MVP again confirmed his initial frustration with Gaspard posting the video and why he eventually relented.

"At first, I was really pissed off at Shad for releasing that video, because I thought that was a very candid moment, and I thought it was something very personal," MVP said. "But when I saw the reaction to the video, and how other people expressed what my reaction and Shad's reaction were, and how people responded to that, it changed my position and I wasn't upset about it anymore, because representation matters. It's a very important thing."

While MVP acknowledged that The Rock — who is half-Black, half-Samoan — had previously held the WWE Championship, he delved deeper into how Kingston's title victory was an important step forward for representation and overall a historic moment.

"Kofi — if I'm not mistaken — was born in Ghana and moved here when he was a small child," MVP said. "He's a dark-complected Black man with dreadlocks. No one that looks like him had ever held the WWE Championship. So across the country and across the world, there were dark-complected young people, from Africa and neighborhoods across America that said 'Hey, that guy looks like me. He's holding up that championship. If he can do it, I can do it.'"

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit YoJoshMartinez and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription