The dreadlocked wrestling sensation speaks with a Jamaican accent, wears green, yellow and black - the colors of the island nation - and his signature spinning roundhouse kick to the face is dubbed "Trouble in Paradise."

But the British Broadcasting Corporation reported last year that Jamaica's first professional wrestler is actually from the African nation of Ghana.

Kingston calls the article "interesting."

"WWE, the 'E' stands for entertainment, and I think a lot of people don't understand. If you're not immersed in the wrestling world, and you're really an outsider looking in, you don't understand that most of it is entertainment," he said. "We all play characters. We all wear all different types of hats. We're athletes, we're actors, we just go out there and we seek to entertain people by any means necessary."

What is known for certain is that Kingston graduated from Boston College and began a career in advertising before deciding to trade in his business suit for a pair of wrestling trunks.

"Being in WWE has always been a lifelong dream," he said. "You know when you're a child you always have dreams. Some people want to be astronauts, some people want to be police officers or marine biologists, and for whatever reason they end up not following those dreams. I kind of was on that same path."

So, he began training, and, unlike the movie "The Wrestler," in which Mickey Rourke's character bears scars that just can't be hidden by a long-sleeve shirt and slacks, Kingston's injuries have mostly been confined to his knees.

"You don't really see a lot of the gore and guts and whatnot like you saw in 'The Wrestler,' " Kingston said of the WWE. "It was a pretty, I don't want to say violent, but there was a lot of very graphic (material), and we, WWE, are a family-oriented show. It's definitely a show for the whole family to see. You can bring your kids, you don't have to worry about the graphic nature of things."

Hard work, combined with being at the right place at the right time, landed Kingston in Extreme Championship Wrestling, or ECW, before being drafted into the WWE, where he has gained the title of Unites States champion. But at 6 feet 1 inch tall and 218 pounds, Kingston is nowhere near the largest WWE wrestler, so he relies on speed and agility to win matches.

"Me, I'm not the biggest guy, I'm not the strongest by any means," he said. "But I have a different style, I go out there and I do a lot of unique moves, and I wrestle with a smile on my face."

But, again, is the roundhouse-kicking wrester who has taken down much larger and stronger opponents really from Ghana and merely playing a Jamaican character?

"I am playing a character," Kingston said. "But I will say that Kofi Kingston is from Kingston, Jamaica, and I'll leave it at that."

Related

• The Quads