Felix Upton on January 12, 2024
Eddie Kingston walked onto AEW television as someone who randomly answered one of Cody Rhodes’ TNT Title open challenge matches. Tony Khan was booking people who had a viral following at the time, during the pandemic, when we were lucky to have pro wrestling at Daily’s Place. Warhorse was even booked in as Cody’s opponent one week, but Eddie Kingston never left after he was booked for that first match against the American Nightmare.
Eddie Kingston does what he feels like at this point, and that includes social media. He is also well aware of everything that goes on within the internet wrestling community, even if he’s not commenting.
During an appearance on the ESPR podcast, AEW Continental Champion Eddie Kingston talked about the toxicity of social media from wrestling fans.
‘“Twitter’s just not healthy, man. I usually ignore Twitter because everybody does the same low hanging fruit jokes or whatever, and that’s fine. I’m also the same guy that’s like, if you don’t like it, then don’t watch. I don’t care. I get paid the same. You not watching does not affect me. I’m in the ring and doing my thing. Why does that affect you? To me, I go, ‘Spmething’s wrong with your life. You need some help.’”
“I saw something that someone wrote, something real nasty about Riho, one of the wrestlers in AEW. I was just like, ‘Oh, this is gross. It was someone who just decided to open up a Twitter that day just to say something nasty. They had like the little egg on it or whatever. I was like, this dude took time out of his day to make a profile page just to write this nasty stuff. I was like, I’m done, and I deleted the app and I was like, I’m over it. You know, to me, that was ugly and I didn’t want to be associated with that ugliness.”
Pro wrestling fans are very passionate, and sometimes it’s to a fault. Tribalism in the fan base is real, as AEW and WWE continue dominating the marketplace, with one noticeably on the incline. Eddie Kingston went on to speak on this subject, because he’s experienced a lot in his career, and he gets that mindset.
“I understand it because when I was a fan, I was all about ECW and screw everybody else, but I never said I want a place to close. To me, when you sit there and say, ‘I hope AEW closes or WWE closes or whatever’, to me, you’re a nasty human being because people are losing their jobs. People with families are losing their jobs. This has nothing to do with tribalism, or whatever. This is you being nasty and not understanding what life’s about, and to me, that’s wrong. I’m a Yankee fan, but I don’t hope the Red Sox players get hurt or injured or whatever.”
“I’m a fan of AEW. I’m gonna say everybody else sucks, even though it’s not true, just like people in WWE will say AEW sucks and theirs is the best and that’s it. You stick with your team. That’s it, but I don’t want no one to close because I actually got a couple of people who I consider friends over at WWE. I don’t want them to lose their job. They got a wife and kids. I want them to feed their family. Those guys don’t want me to lose a job. These fans don’t get that. We’re all pulling for each other. We want everybody to eat, but we want our people to eat first, and eat more (he laughs). That’s it, but everybody else can eat.”
Social media can be tricky place to operate, especially in the pro wrestling world. Kingston opened up on whether bosses should stay away from getting involve with what talent post on social media.
“To me, you do what you want to do. It ain’t my business. You know what I’m saying? That’s the thing I think a lot of us have forgotten, the lessons that we learned as kids like, you know, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all. Don’t be a tattletale. You know what I mean. Just simple things like that, we learned as kids. Growing up in New York, I was always taught to mind your own business. Don’t worry about nobody else’s stuff. Worry about your house. Clean your house first before you try to do anything with anybody else.”
Eddie Kingston is still going strong as AEW Continental Crown Champion. He won that inaugural tournament, which was a massive moment in his career. We will keep our eye on everything he does, because he could have a lot more in store for us.
Tony Khan found a workhorse in Eddie Kingston, someone who is willing to go the extra mile and give his all. That also means he will speak his mind, and that’s exactly what TK knew he was getting.
What’s your take on Eddie Kingston’s remarks on the pro wrestling world? Let us know what you think in the comments section!
January 12, 2024 12:47 pm
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