Eddie Kingston - Ring of Honor World Champion!And also...
- His performance in the Torneo Cibernetico between Team CHIKARA and Die Bruderschaft des Kreuzes at The Dark Ciberknetico. The whole match is terrific, but Kingston stands out for becoming the first man to take Tursas off his feet en route to winning the match.
- His promo
before CHIKARA High Noon and the match with Mike Quackenbush for the CHIKARA Grand Championship. - His debut appearance for AEW had everybody suddenly Googling his name and clamoring for him to get signed, especially after that intense, heartfelt, blistering promo against Cody. Sure enough, a few days later, Eddie Kingston was All Elite.
- Given a national stage to perform on, Eddie Kingston's stock has soared in the months since he signed with AEW, demonstrating his incredible multilayered character depth and incredible promo ability. His feud with Jon Moxley over the AEW World Championship, particularly the build to their savage "I Quit" match at Full Gear 2020, won acclaim as one of the best of the year. As a bonus, that feud was quickly thrown together to replace a planned feud between Lance Archer and Moxley, which was put on ice after the former contracted COVID-19. The fact that the Kingston vs. Moxley feud turned out as well as it did, to the point where it is a genuine highlight of AEW's 2020, is a testament to both men's promo and psychology skills (The Wrestling Observer Newsletter later awarded it "Feud of the Year" for 2020, while Eddie himself would also win "Best on Interviews" because of his unparalleled talent on the mic).
- The speech Eddie gave to everyone backstage at the end of the "Brodie Lee Celebration of Life" tribute show, shown on Episode #237 of Being the Elite, was probably the greatest example of locker room leadership the curtain has ever been pulled back to allow us to see, simultaneously awesome, heartwarming and tear-jerking beyond belief."We did that tonight! We made that man proud! So this doesn't end tonight. This does not end tonight! As long as this company is around, or if I’m around and all the rest of you will be here, we’re going to do that every time, and we’re going to make him proud, and we’re going to make proud of everyone we’ve ever fucking lost, because that’s our art. That’s what we do! Don’t forget tonight, use this. Take this energy... yeah it’s negative now, but make it positive. And tell everyone you love them. Don’t be like our fathers... took my old man 55 fuckin' years to say he loves me. I love each and every one of you, you understand that, because you put your bodies on the line. I love all of you! Stay and be with each other... God-dammit, Brodie, what a- my motherfucker got me talking to everybody... But listen, we’re going to get past this together. We’re going to be stronger than anything! Tonight showed it, how strong we are. We fought through tears, we fought through everything, we put on, probably the greatest tribute show I’ve ever seen in my life, and we’re going to carry it. Let’s carry it, and let’s do it!"
- Revolution 2021. The dud explosion, and Eddie Kingston selling it like he'd been covered in napalm, posed a genuine risk of completely derailing his tough-guy persona and overshadowing his long-awaited Heel–Face Turn. The promo he cut alongside Jon Moxley on the next episode of Dynamite miraculously managed to completely reverse that. His explanation that his selling was the result of his fear of death triggering deeply held anxiety from a time he thought he could be sent to prison, and the mix of sincerity and joviality with which he told that story, not only made sense for his character but also made him come out of the ordeal as a sympathetic face. If that isn't a testament to his promo ability, then nothing ever will be.
- The thing is, if you've watched any of Eddie's promos over the past, oh, 20-ish years, you would discover this sort of promo, the ones that are full of pathos and intensity that immediately gets people paying attention and rooting for him, is par for the course for Eddie MF-ing Kingston. Of course he was going to pull it off.
- His AEW World Championship Eliminator Tournament 2nd round match against Bryan Danielson on the October 29th 2021 episode of AEW Rampage. Danielson had been on possibly the best run of his illustrious career so far in AEW, opening with a 5-star rated 30-minute time limit draw against Kenny Omega and several other awesome matches, including a brutal slugout against Minoru Suzuki, but Eddie's match with him was so savage and so awesome that some people even declared it Danielson's best one so far! Despite how incredibly over the American Dragon is, the crowd rallied behind the underdog Eddie as well, who was driven into an impassioned fury by Danielson's earlier taunts that he doesn't train hard enough to be able to win. When at the climax of the match Eddie finished a strike exchange with Danielson by smacking him with a savage Uraken that knocked his soul out before collapsing, unable to capitalise, the entire crowd rose to their feet to give both men a standing ovation. And when Eddie eventually managed to gather himself enough to crawl over to try and cover Danielson, only to be trapped in a triangle choke from which he simply didn't have the strength to escape, he flipped his opponent off as Danielson rained down elbows on his trapped head until he went limp and the ref called for the bell. Possibly a career-best match for the Mad King that exemplifies exactly how highly-regarded he is in AEW and, more importantly, why.
- The Eddie vs CM Punk face-off on the 5th of November 2021 episode of Rampage got people talking! From the moment Punk had signed with AEW people had been looking forward to him going up against some of their top promo guys on the microphone, with Eddie being at the top of almost everyone's list, and this segment delivered in spades. Eddie unloaded years of resentment with Punk going back to Ring of Honor, reaffirming his position as the realest man in wrestling, and it broke down into a vicious pull-apart brawl when Eddie taunted Punk that, after he was through with him, Punk should quit for another 7 years, causing an enraged Punk to headbutt him to start the slugout. Notably, neither guy was the designated face or heel in the exchange, with the crowd alternately cheering or booing both of them depending on the things they said. A match is set between them for Full Gear and rapidly became one of the most anticipated things on the already stacked card.
- It bears repeating: Eddie Kingston managed to not only get fans behind him against CM Punk, cited as one of the greatest talkers in the business, but get them to outright boo Punk as well, even wishing to see Eddie win over him!
- Eddie's promo package for his Full Gear match against Punk, where he calls out Punk for being a deceitful, manipulative, backstabbing jerk. He admits that Punk can change and become better- but first he has to get through Eddie. The intensity in Eddie's words is just unreal.
- Despite being the shortest match on the cardnote , the match between Eddie and Punk at Full Gear, one of the biggest of Eddie's career, was hailed as one of the best of the night, just a brutal and intense brawl suitable for the heated and personal feud they'd had. Eddie gets the jump on Punk, smacking him with an Uraken over the ref's shoulder before the match even starts and dropping Punk like a stone to a huge roar from the crowd, causing Eddie to grin like a lunatic and start cackling insanely as a dazed Punk tried to pull himself up to his feet. Eddie bloodies Punk early into the match, forcing him to fight through a crimson mask, and the crowd shockingly end up fully behind Eddie, even booing Punk heavily when he starts to use John Cena moves. And while Punk eventually takes the win, it takes two GTS to put Eddie out, and a shaken and battered Punk is impressed enough to offer the Mad King a respectful handshake at the end despite everything Eddie put him through- which Eddie, true to character, refuses.
- At Revolution 2022, Eddie open the PPV with his match against Chris Jericho, who'd been goading him over the fact that he "could never win the big one", since Eddie had lost every PPV match he'd had since debuting in AEW. Eddie had demanded to face the best version of Jericho, the one who had been a trailblazer in WCW and Japan, the one who had been the inaugural AEW World Champion, or else he'd eat Jericho alive, and Jericho took the threat seriously, coming out in the best shape he'd been in years with a renewed vicious streak. The two veterans wrestled a blinder of a match, hitting multiple big moves on each other, culminating in Eddie dodging the Judas Effect, hitting two Urakens back-to-back and then tapping Jericho out with a brutal stretch plum. When referee Aubrey Edwards told him to release the move because his opponent had submitted, Eddie seemed barely able to believe that he'd actually won, finally scoring his first AEW PPV victory in one of the biggest matches of his entire career. To ice the cake, Dave Meltzer gave it 4.75 stars, making it the third time Eddie received the rating in his career.
- His match against Tomohiro Ishii on the Zero Hour pre-show of All Out 2022, a rematch from their previous encounter at NJPW Capital Collision earlier that year which Ishii had won, was a brutal display of stamina and endurance. After a few initial lock-ups, the two hard men just squared up to each other and started chopping each other on the chest- over and over and over again! They exchanged 67 chops back and forth before Eddie finally roared and smashed Ishii down with a double-handed chop before collapsing himself. With Eddie's chest turning red, and Ishii's right pec turning purple, the two men rose up and, after a few elbow shots from Ishii that Eddie shrugged off, went right back to chopping each other!note Ishii occasionally worked a few forearms shots into his offence, but Eddie remained committed to his strategy of trying to chop the Stone Pitbull down with his bare hands, not even attempting a single other move until over 4 minutes into the match. The crowd ate it up with a spoon, giving the two men a standing ovation during one furious exchange, and at one point breaking out into a chant of "CHOP! CHOP! CHOP!" Then half-way through the match the two men just started slapping each other in the face, exchange dozens of furious blows in less than a minute that had the crowd applauding feverishly. After several more minutes of exchanging powerful moves and narrow kickouts, until it looked like both guys could barely move, Ishii appeared to shrug off Eddie's Uraken, only for Eddie to reverse Ishii's suplex attempt into a Northern Lights Bomb and finally pin him, getting his payback against the Stone Pitbull.note
- Eddie defeated Jay White at Battle in the Valley 2023 with four Spinning Backfists, finally ending the Switchblade era and kicking White out of NJPW for good.
- Defeating KENTA at NJPW STRONG Independence Day 2023 to win the NJPW STRONG Openweight Championship, the most high profile title win of his career thus far. Eddie was in tears as he walked out with the belt.
- The first thing he did after winning was call out Mark Briscoe, not to challenge him to a match, but to encourage him to challenge Eddie's arch-enemy, Claudio Castagnoli, for the ROH World Championship at the upcoming Death Before Dishonor PPV. Commenters were awestruck that after winning the biggest prize of his career, Eddie could be selfless enough to immediately turn his attention to encouraging someone else.
- The first thing he did after winning
- Unfortunately Mark was ultimately unable to face Claudio owing to a serious knee injury that required surgery, so by the time of Dynamite Grand Slam III on the 20th of September, Claudio was still champion. At the event, Eddie would step up to face Claudio, putting his own NJPW STRONG Openweight Championship on the line in a winner-takes-all match against his longtime nemesis in front of a rabid New York crowd who were, to the last fan, behind their Home Town Hero. At the end of a brutal slobbernocker of a match where Eddie had to kick out of the Ricola Bomb to keep his hopes alive, Eddie finally hit the ROH Champion with a powerbomb of his own and pinned him, winning one of the most coveted World Championships in the world (especially to a longtime ROH veteran like Eddie). While not actually the first World Championship the Mad King has ever held (having won the top championship in a number of indie feds as well as the CHIKARA Grand Championship) it's by far the most prestigious, and proves that for Eddie Kingston the sky truly is the limit.
- After the match, Claudio handed Eddie the belt himself and, in accordance with the Code of Honor, extended his hand to Eddie, a man he'd previously disdained. After a long, thoughtful moment, Eddie took the hand and shook it, marking a turning point in the two men's long feud. In a promo after the match where Eddie dedicated his win to the late Xavier, the 2nd ever ROH World Champion, Eddie admitted that he still didn't like Claudio as a person, but respected him as a wrestler and a champion. He admitted that in the past he would have rejected the handshake, spat in Claudio's face and gloated over his win, but he'd grown up over the years and knew what the right thing to do was.
