AEW star Eddie Kingston recently appeared on the “Wrestling With Freddie” podcast and commented on the best advice he received from Ted DiBiase, AEW helping him turn his career around, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On how AEW helped turn his career around and trying not to fall into old habits in AEW: “My career before AEW was one step forward, four steps back because I would just shoot myself in the foot because of my temper. It was the mental health issues. There was a period of time I think in 2007, 2008, where I was on a roll. I was at all these big indies like Ring of Honor and PWG. I was wrestling every weekend, three times, four times a week, and then I would just get in my own head saying, ‘I don’t deserve this.’ I’m drinking and I’m sitting in New York in the drunk tank missing flights. Then I would just come back again and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, we’re so happy. You’re back on track.’ And then I would go right off. Either someone pisses me off in the locker room and I’m screaming and yelling, or a promoter tells me to do something, or a promoter doesn’t pay me right, and I’m going to the cash box to take the money from him. You get a bad reputation. I was almost 300 pounds at one point because I just didn’t work out. So my career is just, it’s up and down. I’m my own worst enemy. Even at AEW, there are moments – I tell people all the time, there are moments where the old Eddie, 20-something or 30-something-old Eddie is whispering in my ear saying, ‘No, go ahead, man. Blow it all the way. Blow it all up.’”
On the best advice he received from Ted DiBiase: “You always need the fundamentals. I’ll drop a name, and he probably would never remember this. But a little story, I got kicked out of my first wrestling school. Surprise. Me and my old partner, Blackjack Marciano, and a bunch of other friends, Jigsaw and a couple other guys – we were so desperate to keep learning that we got our money together, we rented a ring, and paid for Ted DiBiase to come and teach us. Like a flight, a shitty hotel, and all this stuff. The best advice he ever gave us was, ‘The fundamentals never change. You need them no matter what.’ So for us in the ring, it’s not just the technique, it’s the fundamentals. It’s also for the people to understand what’s good and what’s bad. It’s really not that deep of a story.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)