The pandemic has been quite brutal on a lot of professions and businesses including wrestling; more specifically Independent wrestling. Indy wrestlers make their money primarily from show bookings which took a massive hit with the coming of the virus as these shows were forced to be cancelled or postponed. One of the victims of this was none other than Eddie Kingston. Kingston had his entire summer planned out in Europe with multiple shows. Kingston found himself in Germany at the start of March doing shows with WXW when the virus started to pick up the pace. He was forced to go back to the U.S.A because lockdown was soon to be enforced. So in March, one of the best talkers in the history of professional wrestling, Eddie Kingston found himself without a job, without a steady source of income and without any future bookings in the U.S.A. Wrestling can be very unfair sometimes.
Given the situation, Kingston was forced to sell his gear to make ends meet. He was living in very tough conditions but he wasn’t going to become just another victim of the pandemic. Kingston was able to get a booking at ICW: No Holds Barred Volume 3 Deathmatch Drive-in in Jersey on July 4 where he showed that he wasn’t going to stay down. After defeating Brett Ison, Kingston grabbed the mic and called out Zack Sabre Jr, the N.W.A World Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis and most importantly the T.N.T Champion Cody. Covered in sweat, Kingston taunted Cody calling his competitors in the open challenge “children” and criticized everything about Cody from his fighting skills to his blonde hair within a minute. This picked up some heat and the name “Eddie Kingston” started to gain momentum. Eddie had struck gold. To be fair, this was long overdue for Kingston. He had been on the top of his game for almost a decade yet he didn’t get the spotlight he deserved until now.
Lo and behold, only two weeks later after calling out Cody, Kingston made his first appearance in AEW as a part of Cody’s open challenge. Kingston upped the stakes by making it a no disqualification match. The two of them had a brutal encounter with Cody coming out on the top. After Dynamite went off the air, AEW posted a video on their socials where Kingston cut a promo giving credit to Cody. As far as Kingston knew, he had just gotten a payday and he didn’t have to sell his boots for a while to survive. He has even mentioned that he didn’t come to that Dynamite to get signed, he just wanted to get paid. However, all eyes were now on Kingston. Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, on literally every social media site you could think of, people were demanding to see more of Kingston and honestly who wouldn’t? Every time he has a mic in his hands, it’s pure gold. You can’t take your eyes off of him when he’s on your screen and you have to hear what he has to say.
Soon enough, Kingston started to get some calls. WWE offered him a position to be a coach in the performance centre and AEW wanted him to work as a full-time wrestler. Even though the WWE offer was lucrative, Kingston signed with AEW as his decision was backed by his mother whom he regards highly of. So On July 31, nine days after his match with Cody, he was officially all elite.
Upon arrival, he formed a faction consisting of The Lucha Brothers, The Butcher and The Blade allowing them to propel him even further up the card. Kingston has one main goal in mind as he has explicitly mentioned on multiple occasions and that is to become the World Champion. He believes that every person on the roster should be fighting for that belt. The hustle never ends for Eddie Kingston and it wasn’t long before the opportunity came knocking at Kingston’s door. On the September 23 episode of Dynamite, the World Champion Jon Moxley was scheduled to face Lance Archer, Brain Cage and Ricky Starks alongside Will Hobbs and Darby Allin in a tag team match but Archer came into contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID so the match was cancelled. Only hours before the show it was announced that Kingston was going to face Moxley for the title in the main event of Dynamite. Kingston seized that opportunity and about an hour before his match, he came out and cut a promo which sold the match for tonnes of people right there and then. He built a main-event calibre match in a minute better than some matches which take months of promos and segments. That’s the magic of Eddie Kingston. The match later that night, however, didn’t turn out the way Kingston might have wanted it to but he had earned his ticket, his ticket to the main event of Full Gear. From there on, AEW creative decided to push a feud between Mox and Kingston’s faction with both sides delivering unmissable promos week after week and then finally announced that Eddie Kingston would face Jon Moxley at Full Gear in an “I Quit” match for the AEW World Championship.
There you have it, folks. Eddie Kingston has finally gotten what he deserved which was set in motion by events that took less than four months ago. Kingston could have gone to WWE for easy money. He could’ve just stopped after he got his contract with AEW, but he never settled for less. He busted his ass for eighteen years to get here and he isn’t going to stop until he gets the AEW World Championship. Kingston’s story is inspiring to say the least. He went from being nearly broke to being booked on a pay per view of one of the biggest wrestling promotions in the world, main eventing over dream matches like FTR vs The Young Bucks, Hangman Adam Page vs Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho vs MJF and interestingly enough he fits perfectly on top of that card. Now that’s elite.