AEW's Eddie Kingston was met with a difficult choice this year when he was forced to consider retirement due tosuffering a torn ACL, torn meniscus, and a fractured tibia while competing in NJPW earlier this year. Luckily for Kingston, AEW offered to cover the costs of his multiple surgeries, allowing him to recently return to action in the promotion.
"Physically, I feel better than ever. ... I'm kind of forced to eat right now," Kingston explained during an interview with PWInsider Elite.
The wrestler noted that he'd previously drink when he started feeling depressed, but he's since replaced that habit with overeating. Across his journey to get back into wrestling shape, he's had to curb this as well.
"Because of that, I've been eating great, losing weight and stuff, and on top of Cezar [Bononi] killing me, you know what I mean? But he got me physically ready, so physically I feel great. Mentally? It took about two or three shows, two or three days on the road, for me to get fully adjusted again."
Kingston added that it wasn't easy getting back into pro wrestling after being away for so long, which was something he didn't expect.
"You'd think that, 'Okay, I'll just go back,' and everything's right back to normal. Nah, man. It was a real quick shock," he stated. When it comes to his emotional state, Kingston admitted that it's been up and down, but added that this has been his life-long struggle.
While Eddie Kingston has claimed that HOOK kept in touch with him throughout his recovery while away from AEW, coming back to the ring was still a difficult task. Further expanding on why it was a "shock" to get back into the grove of competing every week and being on the road, the "Mad King" explained that it had nothing to do with the physicality of pro wrestling.
"The physical stuff wasn't it,"Kingston said. "It's the travel, it's the chaos of live TV,. ... It was being live on pay-per-view, live on TV the next night or the next show." Despite this, Kingston claims he used to thrive in the chaos and that it was all about slowly getting back into the motion.
Regardless of everything, it seems like Kingston is slowly getting back to full capacity. However, when recalling how bad his injury was during an interview with Renee Paquette, he described it as a new kind of pain. Kingston asserted that he's used to the pain of broken limbs, but having his tibia broken was worse than he realized. Still, he's working hard to continue improving his physical conditioning.
"I'm gonna try to get back to Muay Thai training,"he continued. "I always say this, but now since the knee's feeling a lot better, soon, [I should] try to get back there."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "PWInsider Elite" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
