If anybody exemplifies showing respect for all facets of the wrestling business, it’s Eddie Kingston. “The Mad King” chatted with Renee Paquette on her Oral Sessions podcast and told her all about how he got hooked on the one true sport by none other than ‘Hot Stuff’ Eddie Gilbert.
“The first wrestler that grabbed me was – my mother put on Memphis’ Muddiest Brawls—she got it from Video Visions in the Bronx—and put it in and I saw ‘Hot Stuff’ Eddie Gilbert fighting with Jerry Lawler. And for some reason, I still can’t explain it to this day, I was just sucked in by ‘Hot Stuff’ Eddie Gilbert. So he was the first American wrestler that I was just like, ‘Okay, I wanna be him,’ but then I fell out of wrestling and then ECW came along and pulled me right back in. So that pulled me in and I just always wanted to be a pro wrestler so when I got into a local 580 Iron Workers’ Union in New York and I was sitting there on my first ever job site (59th and Columbus) and I just seen a bunch of the older guys coughing up a lung, drinking on the job site and I’m like, ‘Is this…is that my future?’”
Kingston was only 19 at the time, but he went on his dial-up connection of AOL and did some web surfing to try and find his way into the wrestling business. Kingston says he quickly got kicked out of wrestling school, noting that he and his trainer didn’t exactly see eye to eye when it came to the history and development of the business.
“The guy was, he taught great basics, but he believed that if you didn’t do anything in WWE, you didn’t do nothing. So again, me, ‘Hot Stuff’ Eddie Gilbert, Kenta Kobashi, Raven, Shane Douglas, [Tommy] Dreamer—none of them were in WWE. I would mention them and he’d be like, ‘What they ever do? Blah, blah, blah.’ So one day I just had it and I was like, ‘What the fuck did you ever do?’ That was it. I was gone.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
So much more in this captivating chat between two stand-out personalities and you can hear it all go down below:
