As documented by WrestleTalk , WWE’s Kofi Kingston was absent from last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw . During Xavier Woods’ match with T-Bar, the commentary team revealed that the former World Champion had recently broken his jaw. The injury appears to be legitimate and not part of any storyline.
As the report pointed out, Kingston talked about the situation on Instagram, appearing to confirm that the news is legitimate and not part of an angle. The New Day member said that it has made it difficult for him to speak like his usual self.
“I gotta apologize because I feel like I’m talking out of the side of my mouth and I’m dealing with a jaw injury right now. My mouth is only closing on one side and if I sound kind of funny, that’s why. Ordinarily, I do a lot of imitations, impersonations, and impressions but I’m not doing that right now. I’m talking funny trying to figure this situation out.”
WrestleTalk speculated that Kingston may have picked up the injury at December’s TLC pay-per-view. Following New Day’s match with Hurt Business at the event, the Raw star revealed that he was missing some teeth.
Kingston did wrestle on last week’s episode of the red brand’s weekly show, so it’s also possible that he got hurt then. He may have soldiered through the pain for one evening before he took time off to recuperate.
It’s unknown when Kingston will be back in action. Broken jaws are known to take between one to two months to recover from, so he is likely to be off television screens for another few weeks.
In the meantime, Woods might have to contend with facing other roster members on his own, which could be beneficial as the company has shown a willingness to push New Day members as solo acts in the past.
During Kingston’s last hiatus, Big E was pushed as a singles star on Friday Night SmackDown . This subsequently led to him parting ways with his stablemates and going on to become an Intercontinental Champion. Considering that Kingston’s partner lost to T-Bar on the latest episode, he might not be in line for a mega push quite yet.
Both superstars have been used as tag team competitors since Kingston returned to action last year. Since being paired up again, they’ve captured the titles and lost them to Hurt Business. They’ll presumably be back in the title picture when Kingston is ready to compete again.