“…I thought I was going to hang it up right before the pandemic…I was going to do another year or two so my nephew could see me wrestle and then walk away. I’ve got my welders’ license. I was looking up places in Alaska. I was going to get a cheap phone, give my family the number and just disappear…This is the way I look at pro wrestling: We can all have this big celebration of somebody leaving, but they will forget you next week. The show goes on. We’re all cogs and when we get old and rusted, you replace us with a new cog. It’s not nasty; it’s just part of the business…”
via bleacherreport.com
The comments sound like those made by Stone Cold Steve Austin when he was forced to retire from the business. These comments were made by Austin in the Mania of WrestleMania documentary included in the special features of the WrestelMania 20 DVD, chronicling the events of WrestleMania 19. If juxtaposed essentially put side by side, the comments are very similar…
Austin (2019): “…Really who cares? No one’s gonna feel sorry for me…This is entertainment. Entertainment is a machine. This is wrestling. You’re a gear in the machine work. I understand the system…that’s why I don’t want any sympathy. I’m a gear that got used up. You pull this gear off, you put it in a pile of old gears, you put a new one in the machine, the machine keeps rolling…”
But at the end of the day, that’s Eddie Kingston. Very similar in character to the Texas Rattlesnake in a plethora of ways, and I mean that as a compliment to both men.
Kingston started wrestling in 2002 and made his way through some of the industry’s most prominent and decorated independent promotions and smaller wrestling companies and promotions. That list includes: NWA, Combat Zone Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Guerilla, Ring of Honor, Impact, Jersey All Pro and Chikara, where he got his start. Of course, all of this led to AEW, where he’s finally showing a larger audience of wrestling fans what he’s capable of—something the fans on the independent circuit were already aware of.
What’s left to do?
In the same aforementioned bleacherreport.com piece, Eddie stated of the current AEW roster:
“Everybody knows Jungle Boy is the future of the business…Yuta just came in. I’ve known him for a minute. Bryan Pillman Jr. of course, and his partner, Griff… A lot of guys in the Dark Order are the future; especially of AEW…You have a bunch of young, hungry guys there and in all of wrestling. Every promotion has a bunch of guys who are ready to go. I think the pandemic made these guys hungrier because they saw that everything can be taken away in a heartbeat. Wrestling is in good hands…”
via bleacherreport.com
In the end, with all his experience in the business, he can help mold the future wrestlers, and as with all the veteran legends on that AEW roster, they can sure help get the product to where it’s obviously already destined to go…and that’s nowhere but upwards, folks.
