AEW star Eddie Kingston recently spoke to TSN to hype his world championship matchup at this weekend’s Full Gear, where Kingston will battle long-time friend Jon Moxley. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
How he decided not quit wrestling because of his nephew:
My brother, being my brother, gave me a little speech and he was basically like, ‘Hey man, I need you to help me with my son, with your nephew, and show him how to be a man and everything. And I was like, ‘Yeah, of course. Why are you even asking me this?’ And he just goes, ‘Well, I only have one problem – how can I tell my son never to quit, never to give up when his uncle did?’ I was like, ‘Excuse me?’ and he said, ‘How can I tell him never to quit when you’re quitting wrestling?’ And that just made me go, ‘Okay, well I guess I’m not quitting now,’ and I’m doing it for my nephew.
On the epic promo he cut in ICW where he called out Cody Rhodes, Zack Sabre Jr, and Nick Aldis:
It was my first show since the pandemic [started] and I was broke. I had to sell my gear to pay my mortgage. So I was a little angry and I went to the ring and I had the match, then I grabbed the microphone and I said to myself that I’m going to let the world see my frustration.
How that led to his TNT title matchup on AEW Dynamite:
I called Cody out because of the open challenge and I just did it to shoot my shot. I didn’t think anything was going to come out of it. I guess Cody got wind of it and Cody accepted. After that, it was maybe two text messages and ‘Can you come in? Yep. ‘Can you fight Cody? Yep. Is two weeks good? Yep.’ And that was it.
Says he’ll never lose the indie wrestling mindset even thought he’s in a major promotion:
I’m not going to forget where I came from. When I go on Twitter and see a guy from the independents doing something different and cool, I’m going to tell people about it. One of my main problems with Mox is that he didn’t use his popularity or social media with all of his followers and everything to put over places that he used to be at or people he used to run with. So I still have that outlaw, independent mindset. To me, that’s what AEW was built on. That’s why I think I would be the perfect champion for them because I have the outlaw spirit, just like [AEW executive vice presidents] the Bucks, Kenny [Omega] and Cody do. They did things their way and now look where they’re at.
How the pandemic is killing the independent scene:
It’s killing them. Like I said, I had to sell my gear, my wrestling gear, to pay for my mortgage and Lord knows how long that was going to last. I was selling T-shirts and old 8x10s just to make the payments. And when I made the payments, I felt like I was 20 years old again, just eating peanut butter, ramen noodles, white rice and eggs. So it’s really hurting a lot of guys and it’s stopping a lot of guys’ momentum. A lot of these guys are not getting paid well for the one or two shots that they’re doing a month. To survive on the independents when I was making a living off of it, you had to do a Thursday show, a Friday show and Saturday and Sunday shows. You had to do at least four shows a week. So these guys aren’t getting that, and Lord knows that they’re not making a lot of money because the independent companies aren’t making a lot of money, either. It’s really hurting them.
Says he wouldn’t have bent to a major promotion like Jon Moxley did:
No, because knowing me, I would have gotten fired three minutes in if I went when Mox went. Again, this is why I have a little bit of beef with Mox, because he started playing the game. I probably would have, at that point in time and especially at that age and what was going on in my life, gotten fired three minutes in because I wouldn’t bend. I wouldn’t have bent like he did.