AEW superstar Eddie Kingston recently joined The Ringer’s MackMania program to discuss the criticism of Adam Cole’s body type, and how he never cared about body image in wrestling because some of his favorite talents were guys like Dick Murdoch and Dusty Rhodes. Highlights from the Mad King’s interview can be found below.
Says he grew up idolizing guys like Dusty Rhodes and Dick Murdoch so body image was never important to him:
My whole career I’ve been hearing it and look, you have to work out to be a pro wrestler. You have to have good cardio. Cardio’s the main thing and yeah, you hear it your whole life, you gotta look the part and all that. There was a shift where, you know, you had to be a muscle guy. There was a shift in the business and you know, when you have that so much, people get sick of it and then, you know, you have to do different things. I grew up on guys that looked tough. There was some muscle guys but there were also guys like Dick Murdoch and Dusty Rhodes and those guys, you know what I mean? That you — if you wanna body shame and knock anyone nowadays, would you knock them?… Guys like that who look like dudes that they would fight you and then came the bodybuilder era and a lot of those bodybuilders couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. Let’s be honest about it, you know? But yeah, you do have to be an athlete to be in this and you do have to cardio and workout and body shaming stuff? My man, here’s my thing, if you don’t like it, don’t watch.
Takes shots at those who criticize people’s bodies:
If you wanna rip on someone or knock on somebody, okay man, I feel bad for you because that’s what gets your rocks off, you’re an evil, disgusting human being. That’s all it is and I hope you never have somebody rip on you like that, you know what I mean? Because you’re a weak person so you’ll probably break down. But anyway, that’s me taking shots. No, I get it, I get it but again, I grew up in an era, we had hillbillies and Texans and then body guys and everything like that. Look, no one looks the same. When you start looking the same, it gets real boring. Yeah, it gets real boring. Me? I got a little bit of a belly, yeah. I like to eat ice cream, I like Five Guys, I like pizza, you know what I mean? But I also like to lift weights and do cardio and I also like to fight and punch people in the face and chop people, you know what I mean? So I’m just me. My other thing with that is I know this is old, an old thing to say but a lot of you, a lot of the people who body shame, a lot of the people who say negative stuff, besides being disgusting human beings because that’s what gets their rocks off, none of them would ever step in the ring. Not to fight, I mean just even run the ropes, you know what I mean? Or even just step in there and they’re like, well that’s not my job. Well my man, you don’t see me bothering you at your job, you know what I mean? Telling you how to clean the floor… I was gonna say something else, so I had to switch it! You know where I was coming from. It was in my head. I was like, ahh! 2022 Eddie, 2022, I’m different.
On Adam Cole and the criticism he receives:
When it comes to Adam Cole, none of y’all are as athletic as him, for those people that are saying that. Also, y’all are jealous. My man’s living the good life. He gets to do what he wants to do, he gets paid to play video games, right? And he got D.M.D., which a lot of these dudes, all these dudes on the Twitter would kill — you know, give up anything for a minute with her. Big facts on that. He’s living his good life man so y’all can keep up and be hateful and spiteful and let it eat at you, because you do because you’re a disgusting person. He’s living his good life.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)
