Eddie Kingston Recalls CM Punk Feud Triggering Him Mentally
During a recent interview with The Wrestling Perspective Podcast, Eddie Kingston spoke about how his AEW feud with CM Punk negatively affected his mental state. He also discussed his disdain for the word "superstar" used by today's wrestling promotions.
The term "superstar" is often used when describing today's wrestling performers. However, that wasn't always a word used when discussing the wrestlers of the past. In fact, Kingston himself hates the word and laments his reasoning in the interview.
"I hate that word superstars", Kingston remarked. "I get why you say superstar because that's been beaten into our heads. When I was a kid growing up, we didn't call Dusty Rhodes or Ric Flair or anybody in the NWA or WCW at the time, or even ECW, superstars."
Despite not liking the word, Eddie Kingston is currently a superstar performing for AEW. One of the biggest problems in his AEW career has been against CM Punk, who made his return to wrestling after a seven-year absence. The feud showcased the two men embroiled in a war of words. Unfortunately for Kingston, the back and forth with Punk took quite a toll on his overall mental state.
"After the showdown there with Punk, as I like to call it, I had to walk away from everybody so I could break out of that mental state where I just wanted to kill everybody. Everything I said to Punk was real. I just have to break out of that because then I would've been miserable the whole day. I would've been, as my father would say, sitting in my own s*it and not getting out of my own way.
"There was a moment with Mox, where me and Mox were yelling at each other in Jacksonville, where we went back and forth. I had to walk away from everybody because I was so into it. I was 17 again. After those two showdowns or promos, I was 17 again. When I was 17, that's basically my character, is me at 17. When I was at 17, I was just angry. I hated the world and wanted to fight everybody. In a sick kind of twisted way, I was suicidal in a way that I didn't want to kill myself, but I wanted someone else to do it."
The promo battles between Kingston and Punk had a real feel to them, which according to Kingston is no accident. In the interview, he discusses how the history between them led to the truth purging. It felt real to the fans because it was.
"There's a lot of things said between me and him [CM Punk] that we did not get to say to each other as long as we've known each other", Eddie Kingston said. "It was either because I didn't wanna say it to him because I didn't want to deal with him or he just didn't want to deal with me. When we got the chance to, we let it all out and people enjoyed it.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Wrestling Perspective with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.