AEW star Eddie Kingston spoke with PW Insider about a number of pro-wrestling related topics, including how he felt main eventing Rampage at Arthur Ashe Stadium (match aired last night) and how he felt working across from the legendary Minoru Suzuki. Highlights from the interview are below.
On main eventing AEW Rampage against Minoru Suzuki:
“I know. I am drained, I am drained, I am emotionally, mentally, physically, after Suzuki started beating me up and Lance started beating me up, drained. That’s it, that’s all I can tell you, drained. [The match] means the world to me. It was like I was in there with four pillars. It was like I was in there with The Three Musketeers in New Japan. It was everything. It was everything to me. I cracked a smile in the middle of going back and forth with Suzuki in the ring. And you know me, Mike, I don’t smile when I fight. I’m just trying to get in there and fight. But I just cracked a little smile like, “Yeah, let’s go. I was born to this.” I actually felt, at the end of the night when I sat in the locker room by myself, after the adrenaline wore off and I had tears in my eyes, running down my face, thinking of this 20-year-career, it will be 20 years in October. Thinking about this 20-year-career and thinking about everybody who was there with me and everybody who has passed away who I knew, who was with me, and everybody who wasn’t with me, and all this stuff, I just broke down in tears, I couldn’t believe it. I could not believe it. And then in my head I went like this, Mike, you know me. I went, “Okay, on to the next one.”
Giving his mother a special shout-out to the live crowd:
“Man, I’m a mama’s boy and I don’t care. I wanted everyone to know that I love my mother and that I’m so thankful for her. And my dad, let’s not forget, because my dad busted my balls a little bit. He was like, “Oh, that’s cool. Mention your mother, not me.” But those guys, they never left me. They never gave up on me. Man, I was a hardheaded kid, Mike. I was hardheaded, I was hardheaded in my 20s, I was hardheaded, but they never gave up on me. No matter how broke I was, no matter how many times I had to go to them to borrow money to pay off rent, they just never gave up. They said, “Keep chasing your dream.” Because they’d rather have me chasing my dream than me out in the street or sitting at a bar all day drinking.”