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Several million Facebook users have been fooled by a fake news story... by a site that ONLY produces fake wrestling news.
The website Kayfabe News ran a bogus article claiming that Kofi Kingston had become the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion after defeating Brock Lesnar at an un-televised event. Like so many of their jokes, it was shared by many wrestling humour accounts on both social networking websites. But the truly funny part is how many people believed it. The official WWE website and dozens of wrestling news sites were besieged by fans wanting confirmation of the news.
Kayfabe News has gained a lot of publicity this year for their parody stories. They are purely satirical and were not intended as actual wrestling journalism. Earlier reports included that Luther Reigns would be returning to replace his cousin Roman Reigns while Roman is recovering from surgery, and the Great Khali is now 4 inches taller after being in the Cesaro swing.
The WWE has come under heavy criticism for having Lesnar be the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Lesnar's contract limits the number of appearances that he has to make in a year, meaning the main title holder of the company will be rarely seen. Earlier this year, Daniel Bryan was officially stripped off the title because he was unable to make frequent title defenses, but yet Lesnar is set to keep the title until the Royal Rumble (mid-January) with no scheduled matches before then.
If Kingston really did win the title, this would be particularly historic. This would make him the first African superstar to hold the title. The closest so far was the Rock, who is of African-Canadian and Samoan decent. Kingston is from Ghana, so this would have made him the first person from the African continent to have held the title.
Earlier this week, a Reddit user started a hoax that the WWE Network would be a regular cable channel in the UK. Maffew, the YouTube user behind the Botchamania video series, discovered that this was not true.
The website Kayfabe News ran a bogus article claiming that Kofi Kingston had become the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion after defeating Brock Lesnar at an un-televised event. Like so many of their jokes, it was shared by many wrestling humour accounts on both social networking websites. But the truly funny part is how many people believed it. The official WWE website and dozens of wrestling news sites were besieged by fans wanting confirmation of the news.
Kayfabe News has gained a lot of publicity this year for their parody stories. They are purely satirical and were not intended as actual wrestling journalism. Earlier reports included that Luther Reigns would be returning to replace his cousin Roman Reigns while Roman is recovering from surgery, and the Great Khali is now 4 inches taller after being in the Cesaro swing.
The WWE has come under heavy criticism for having Lesnar be the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Lesnar's contract limits the number of appearances that he has to make in a year, meaning the main title holder of the company will be rarely seen. Earlier this year, Daniel Bryan was officially stripped off the title because he was unable to make frequent title defenses, but yet Lesnar is set to keep the title until the Royal Rumble (mid-January) with no scheduled matches before then.
If Kingston really did win the title, this would be particularly historic. This would make him the first African superstar to hold the title. The closest so far was the Rock, who is of African-Canadian and Samoan decent. Kingston is from Ghana, so this would have made him the first person from the African continent to have held the title.
Earlier this week, a Reddit user started a hoax that the WWE Network would be a regular cable channel in the UK. Maffew, the YouTube user behind the Botchamania video series, discovered that this was not true.