Eddie Kingston‘s family and legends in other mediums have helped shape who he is as a wrestler.
Earlier this year, Kingston told Chris Van Vliet that he wasn’t sure WWE or AEW would be a good fit for him, noting that he didn’t want to be a guy that was “just there” sitting and waiting. Kingston acknowledged he’s been through that before with IMPACT Wrestling, coming in with the Death Crew Council before being used sporadically after they quietly broke up.
“If WWE sees something that they can use me for to sell merch or get viewers, then they’ll use me. AEW, same thing. If they see, ‘Oh, Eddie Kingston can bring in this many people,’ ‘Oh, he can sell this many shirts,’ or ‘He’s a good fit here,’ then they’ll use me. And like I was telling you before,” Kingston told Van Vliet, “I never want to be that guy that’s just somewhere, just sitting in the back waiting. I did that on my first time at IMPACT, you know? And when I was part of the DCC with Bram and James Storm. After a while, they were just like, ‘All right, sit there Eddie.’ And I was like, ‘Oh,you know.’ [shrugs] ‘I’m here’…they had nothing for me, but I’m still under contract so I have to show up and I have to sit there … I would get paid if I wasn’t on [due to the pay-per-appearance contract], but I had to be there. So that’s why I don’t want to be that guy.”
While speaking with WrestleZone ahead of AEW Full Gear, Kingston was asked what ultimately changed his mind about signing with either company. Kingston says his mother played a key role in his decision, noting she saw he wouldn’t have been happy in WWE and he holds her opinion in high regard.
“My mom. When WWE and AEW were showing interest, my mom was the one that was like, ‘Look, you won’t be happy at WWE. Go to AEW.’ And I was like, ‘Alright, mom.’ That’s it. I guess that’s the momma’s boy in me, I guess you could say. Nobody knows you better than your mother,” Kingston explained, “and once she said that to me, it was done, that’s a wrap.”
While his mother remains a strong influence in his life, Kingston says he also takes inspiration from many artists in different fields.
“People can call it an art and I believe that certain guys can call it an art, but it’s only certain guys. When they start calling pro wrestling an art, they’re just bastardizing the word. Certain people can say that but to me, every man is an artist, whether he paints, whether he cooks, writes stories, whatever. Every man is an artist. My art just happens to be professional wrestling, and the things that inspire me are wrestlers, Homicide is number one. Kenta Kobashi, Terry Funk, [Toshiaki] Kawada, [Mitsuharu] Misawa,” Kingston explained, “Jun Akiyama, The Great Muta, Shinji Hashimoto, Masahiro Chono. I can go on for days and days and days about the guys that inspire me. Tupac [Shakur] inspires me, Sun Tzu inspires me. I get inspiration from everywhere but in all honesty, the thing that inspires me right now is my niece and nephew.”
