Real Reason Eddie Kingston Rejected WWE For AEW
Eddie Kingston speaks on turning WWE down for AEW on Renee Paquette's Oral Sessions podcast.
Renee Paquette welcomed All Elite Wrestling's Eddie Kingston to her Oral Sessions podcast earlier this week, with the duo touching on all kinds of topics relating to 'The Mad King's' life and professional wrestling career, including his decision to sign with AEW over WWE.
Having previously revealed that WWE attempted to poach him after his Dynamite debut opposite Cody Rhodes, Kingston told Paquette that his decision on where to sign came down to his mother's advice.
Here's the quote:-
"I talked to Christopher Daniels. They offered me the deal and then I listened to the other side, I guess we call them. I was just weighing options. Then my mother goes, ‘You won’t be happy over there. Trust me’. Who knows me better than my mother? Bottom line with the whole thing is, I know more people at AEW. I know there’s a lot more heart there. I think for her, that’s what she thought she was like, I’m gonna be with people who love it just as much as I do.”
The decision has been proven a wise one. Kingston has caught on in a big way in AEW, delivering brutish in-ring performances and industry-best promos on a weekly basis, all with a level of legitimacy and believability that isn't always possible in WWE's highly-controlled environment with its glossy style of presentation.
Kingston also described his experience at a WWE tryout around the time of the Mae Young Classic tournament. Though the tryout was primarily for women's wrestlers, referee Drake Wuertz grabbed Eddie or a promo:-
"‘Yeah it was hard. I’ve had people shoot at me, try to stab me with knives and God I hate this drill more than that.’ Put the camera down, everyone’s looking at me like I’m nuts because I said guns and knives, and I remember doing the promo class and I said, ‘Where I come from, they believe in Tupac more than Santa Claus,’ and I saw two writers just have this confused look on their face when I said it and I went, ‘Oh yeah, I’m done. Let me just go have my match and I’ll leave."
Again, it's hard to hear these comments without coming away with the impression that Kingston made the right choice for himself.