AEW star Eddie Kingston recently spoke to Busted Open Radio to hype his world title matchup against Jon Moxley at tonight’s Full Gear pay per view. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On wanting to be a world champion:
People say you deserve this and that, but no one deserves anything in life. Everything you do in life, you got to work for. Nothing is handed to you. I worked for this. I prepared for this. This is not surprising to me. This is not making me nervous going into the ring, because I’m prepared for this. We get into this business to be World Champion. To me, it runs 18 years and it doesn’t matter how long it takes. This is the point why we are in this. We’re in this to be champions and not to be the opening act. Not to be a mid-carder. We’re here to be World Champions.
How it makes him happy to see so many indie faces on a major promotion like AEW:
I just smile, because I never would have thought this for any of them. When we were out there wrestling 30 people in Toronto, Canada, and we had to drive hours to get there, I didn’t think that was going to happen for any of us. Seeing everybody there, I just smile. I look at Orange Cassidy and I smile. Chuck Taylor, I smile. Bryce Remsburg, the referee, I was with him from day one where he used to train to be a wrestler too. There’s so many guys. I’ve been on the road with a lot of that roster and to see them make it and do well, it’s a nice little thing. It puts a smile on your face.
Says he’s dedicating his performance at Full Gear to Tracy Smothers:
Tracy Smothers was the first guy to believe in me and my old partner Blackjack. He was the first veteran that we met at the time who actually went out of his way and was so open, honest, and wanted to help us. He just loved pro wrestling. It was insane to me how much Tracy loved pro wrestling and he loved you if you were a wrestler. In the beginning, Tracy loved you just because you were a pro wrestler. That was it and he helped so many people. That’s why it hurt so many people to hear about his passing. There are so many guys that I don’t talk to anymore that were texting me, asking me if I was okay about Tracy and that’s how much he meant to people. That’s why I dedicated this match to him. People can like that or hate, that’s not for them. It’s for me and it’s for the people who knew Tracy and loved Tracy. It just adds another layer of me going to kill myself to make this match what it is.
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)