Eddie Kingston is firmly back in the fold in AEW after being on the shelf for 16 months after suffering a torn ACL, a torn meniscus, and a fractured tibia during a match with Gabe Kidd in New Japan Pro Wrestling. "The Mad King"has never shied away from expressing his thoughts and feelings, and in a recent interview with Mike Johnson on PWInsiderElite, Kingston admitted that he did come close to retiring due to the injury, and revealed the main reason behind that thought.
"It was the fact that I couldn't afford the surgery with my insurance, and the minute the doctor told me 'Yeah you can live without an ACL,' I was like 'Okay, well I guess I'm done.'" However, when AEW CEO and President Tony Khan caught wind of Kingston not being able to afford his surgery, he stepped in. "People can say whatever they want about Tony or AEW, but once I told Tony...that 'Hey, I can't afford it, not with this insurance so I'm just going to call it,' and straight up Tony was like 'I'm not going to let you do that,' so he paid for the surgery."
Kingston went on to admit that there were always doubts about whether he should return to wrestling, especially while he was watching AEW on pay-per-view, stating that everyone he saw was so athletic and incredible while he felt like he was just a fighter and didn't bring anything new to the table. When he was then asked if he believes Khan has essentially saved his career, Kingston agreed without hesitation. "From a physical standpoint yeah, so that's twice. First it was financial and now physical. All I need him to do now next is mental and emotional and we'll be alright...if he could figure that out he would be a quadtrillionaire because people would be going to him for help."
Please credit PWInsiderElite when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
