Eddie Kingston recently appeared on Talk Is Jericho. He discussed various topics, including how he signed with All Elite Wrestling, why he didn’t sign with WWE and more. Here are some highlights:
On how the COVID-19 pandemic nearly ended his career:
Kingston: “The pandemic hit, I was in the UK doing a tour, so when I got home, all my UK money was gone because I had to pay bills. I got a house in Florida, all this stuff and I finally get an indy show. And I was going to the indy show and I was mad, I was mad that I had to sell my gear…to pay my mortgage, and I had to sell my boots and old 8x10s. I never do that, I had shirts made, I never do that, selling.”
“When [the pandemic hit], I was like wow, this is how it ends. This is how my career ends because of the pandemic and I was like man. Only reason why I’m still wrestling is for my nephew because I want my nephew to one day go to school and be like, my uncle’s a pro wrestler.”
On how he landed with AEW:
Kingston: “I got a phone call from QT Marshall, and he goes, ‘You wanna wrestle Cody?’ I said, ‘Yeah, why not.’ That was it. I took it as another booking because I didn’t see it as aw, I’m gonna go in there and they’re gonna be wowed by me and sign me or whatever. I was like look, I’ll go in there, do my best, do my job and go home. ”
“Gotta give Cody ‘Rhodes] credit, he was so giving, you know what I mean. He didn’t have to do what he did in that match with me. He could have went in there and been like, ‘You know what, you like to talk s—, kid, we’re going three minutes, I’m beating you.’ I would have been like, okay, because that would have been my job. I’m not gonna fight it. Alright man, Whatever you want to do. But he went out there and he worked with me, and we beat each other up.”
On trying to make the AEW TNT Championship feel important:
Kingston: “I wanted to show how mad I was, you know what I mean, or how destroyed I was because the TNT title meant so much to me. Because I grew up watching wrestling where all the titles meant something because the guys, that’s all they wanted was the championship. Or like Flair would say, ‘This is the greatest championship in the world,’ and then go to WWF at the time and say, ‘This is the top championship,’ but you still put it over. That’s what I grew up on. So I wanted to make sure okay, Cody, my job, Cody gets over as a tough guy but now the championship also, I gotta get that over. It’s not about me. I’ll just talk or go home. I did my job, I’ll go home. And that’s the way I looked at it.”
On getting a call from WWE:
Kingston: “I get a call from the competition. To be honest, to them, they were trying to get me to coach for years. But my thing was, and I told them, I can’t collect a paycheck if I didn’t earn it. And they were like, ‘What do you mean?’ And my thing was I was gonna go in there, coach, be bitter and angry about coaching, not getting a shot and these guys who don’t, they love wrestling now because they’re at the Performance Center, no offense to them, but when you’re on the road getting paid hot dogs and soda, but I would have been so bitter and angry, I wouldn’t have done a good job and I would have been detrimental to those kids so I was like, nah I’m good.”
“So anyway, now they were talking about other things besides coaching and, yeah, I had to weigh my options. And I came here and I told a couple people, ‘Hey look, the competition hit me up, just letting you know. I’m not begging for a job, just letting you know. It’s very hard for me to play this supposed wrestling game…. Yeah, man I just said that to them. Next thing you know, Christopher Daniels just goes, ‘Hey here’s a contract.”
The full interview is available here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4PtviCjP1L11XYYhs2uCeR
RELATED: Bully Ray Praises Eddie Kingston On AEW Dynamite: ‘He Made Me Believe’
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