A number of topics covered by Eddie Kingston.
Going into AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door II, talents from both companies are making the media rounds to promote the event and one of those talents is Eddie Kingston. Kingston is scheduled to tag with Tomohiro Ishii and The Elite (Hangman Adam Page, Matt & Nick Jackson) to take on Konosuke Takeshita, Shota Umino and Blackpool Combat Club (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta).
Kingston made his return to AEW earlier this month. He had been recovering from hernia surgery. He told New York Post that he’s feeling much better. Kingston judges pain based off how well he can sleep and said after the ROH World Title match against Claudio, he could not sleep.
He added that he attempted to make his way to work that following Wednesday but immediately knew he could not travel due to the pain he was in.
I’ve been dealing with the injury since September and I did the typical stupid wrestler thing, which is work through it and then I couldn’t work through it anymore. I feel a thousand times better. They told (me) six weeks. So I took all six weeks, took advantage of it. As I said on TV the other day, ‘Please forgive me for the way I look. I had been eating a lot of ice cream during my time off.’ I’ve just been able to get back to working out. I’m getting back to a better version of me.
The way I judge pain is if I can sleep. That last match I had with Claudio at Ring of Honor (on March 31), I was icing my groin area and I couldn’t sleep at all that night, and when I saw that, I knew something was wrong. And I still tried to go to work that Wednesday. I got up that Tuesday to go to the airport and I’m out the door and I looked at my girlfriend and said, ‘I can’t get on that plane.’ That’s how much pain I was in. I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s time to go.’
CM Punk has been back with AEW two weeks. He’s appeared and wrestled on Collision twice and was on the most recent edition of Dynamite.
Kingston was asked about Punk’s comeback and stated that the locker room is not divided as far as he can tell from the people he associates with.
He did it his way and that’s the way wanted to do it. I expected it. I knew it was happening, knowing (CM) Punk and what he thought was right for him. That’s it. I see the reports. I see the clickbait on YouTube. But the locker room is not divided, not the people I hang out with. Punk’s gonna do what Punk does and if whatever Punk does helps this company, no one can say anything.
Not me, man. Not my crew of people I hang out with (were bothered by it). Maybe there’s that one percent that are bothered but the people I chill with, they’re good. They don’t care.
In July, Kingston is heading to Japan and he’ll be part of the Independence Day shows for STRONG. He is set to challenge KENTA for the STRONG Openweight Championship.
Several weeks later, he’ll be in the G1 Climax tournament. Kingston is in the C block with the likes of Ishii, Tama Tonga and Shingo Takagi. He stated that it feels like a dream and there was no way he was going to miss out on the opportunity.
I worry every time I go to sleep, I’m going to wake up and it’s not true and it’s all a dream. That’s how worried I am about that. The first New Japan Wrestling match I really sat down and watched as a teenager was finals of the G1 in 1991 between Keiji Muto and Masahiro Chono. I always wanted to be in the G1 and to actually have it happen, I kind of look around going, I can’t believe it’s real. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wake up one morning and they go, ha, ha we’re joking. I’m also the kind of guy, OK, cool, this is a dream, but I’m also not going there to go, OK, I’m here, beat me, I’ll lose. I’m going there to win it.
There was no way I was gonna not do it (even though I just came back). There was definitely a conversation, but Tony (Schiavone) knows me and Tony knows I’m very honest, maybe too honest because I use rough words and I don’t mean to be rough. There have been moments where we’ve had a meeting together and Tony Schiavone will go, ‘Eddie, use a different word. Don’t go so hard.’ It’s because I’m passionate about what I do. We had a discussion and my exact words to Tony were: ‘How dare you f—king lay that question on me. I’ll be ready.’
POST Wrestling’s Forbidden Door predictions video can be watched at this link.
