Naomi has often been compared to Kofi Kingston due to their athletic traits, skin color, and memorable Royal Rumble spots.
The comparisons between the two actually become a joke between them, but both agree that Naomi has outgrown the comparison and is able to stand on her own merits.
Naomi joined Kofi and New Day on New Day: Feel The Power podcast and Kofi discussed the running joke and when it stopped.
"When you first started coming around, everyone was like, 'Have you seen Naomi? She's like a female version of you.' She's black, I'm black, she's got long hair, I've got long hair? Okay. I start seeing you do some stuff and I was like, 'Oh, she's an athlete.' Then I saw you do a springboard and I'm like, 'Oh no, her moveset is way better than mine. She's incredibly gifted and athletic. Everything she does is better than what I do.' Back when in the day, when we would greet each other, we'd be like, 'Well if that isn't the female version of myself.' 'Well if that isn't the male version of myself.' Over time, we stopped doing that because you start to forge your own path. You see a lot of it now starting to payoff with everybody wanting you to get your due. In my opinion, we were never the same, outside of being two African American individuals. You embraced the whole Feel The Glow thing," said Kofi.
Kofi continued, revealing that he almost felt the glow himself in 2010, but he wasn't exactly a fan of how the potential gimmick was pitched to him.
"In 2010, I was with the merch team and we were trying to come up with different shirts and they have all these terrible designs. One of them was this weird silhouette of me and this bodypaint and the dude at the merch table was pitching me this idea and was like, 'Maybe you come out and have blacklight body paint on, like the black version of Jeff Hardy.' I'm like, 'What, what are you talking about? I'm not coming out painting myself and glowing in the dark, that's stupid!,'" recalled Kofi. "Then, seeing you come out with the whole glow, I'm like, 'Ohhhhh, maybe I should have embraced that.' What are you doing, is what they were talking about, but if they had described it to me in a better way than being 'the black version of Jeff Hardy,' I might have embraced it more."
Kofi ended up doing pretty well for himself without embracing the glow, winning the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35.
Elsewhere on the podcast, Naomi revealed she couldn't wear her natural hair when she first signed with WWE. You can find her full comments by clicking here.
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