Kofi Kingston didn't just fill in for Mustafa Ali this week, his hour-long performance was originally intended to be for the injured Superstar.

This Sunday, six men will step inside the Elimination Chamber and do battle for the WWE Championship. Before that, those same six men had to compete in a gauntlet match on SmackDown Live. The last man standing come the end of that match would earn the right to enter the chamber last, giving them a massive advantage over the rest of the field.

WWE Champion Daniel Bryan started Tuesday's gauntlet match and was joined by Kofi Kingston. The New Day member was a last minute entrant into this weekend's title match. That's due to Mustafa Ali suffering from what WWE is referring to as a build-up of injuries. Kingston didn't win the gauntlet match, but he put on one hell of a performance.

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via wwe.com

The former US Champion beat Bryan, then Jeff Hardy, and capped off his night with a surprise win over Samoa Joe. The beating Joe delivered after the fact meant Kingston could not overcome the next challenger, AJ Styles. It turns out, according to Ringside News, that Kingston's more than hour-long performance was exactly what we would have seen from Ali.

WWE is clearly pretty high on Ali, as has been evident since his move from 205 Live to SmackDown Live. He has already beaten the WWE Champion once and was meant to have done it again on Tuesday night. Sadly, injuries prevented that. What we now hope is that Ali doesn't fall off the radar. We're also very disappointed we won't get to see what he was going to do inside of the chamber.

There is a pretty big silver lining to all of this, though. Kingston is finally getting a chance to shine. As much as we love Ali, the New Day member deserves this spot more. Kingston has been under contract with WWE for more than a decade and has never been a World Champion during that time. That's an absolute travesty, and something we could very well see rectified at Elimination Chamber.

NEXT: THE BUILD TO KURT ANGLE'S FINAL MATCH HAS ALMOST DEFINITELY BEGUN