Eddie Kingston, who recently returned to AEW from hernia surgery, will team with “Hangman” Adam Page, The Young Bucks and Tomohiro Ishii against Claudio Castagnoli, Jon Moxley, Wheeler Yuta, Konosuke Takeashita and Shota Umino at the Forbidden Door pay-per-view from Scotiabank Area on Sunday (8 p.m., Bleacher Report). Before his first match back from injury, the Yonkers native took time for some Q&A with The Post’s Joseph Staszewski
(Edited for clarity and length)
Q: How much better do you feel physically now after the hernia surgery and was the three months the timetable they gave you at the time to be back?
A: I’ve been dealing with the injury since September and I did the typical stupid wrestler thing, which is work through it and then I couldn’t work through it anymore. I feel a thousand times better. They told be six weeks. So I took all six weeks, took advantage of it. As I said on TV the other day, ‘Please forgive me for the way I look. I had been eating a lot of ice cream during my time off.’ I’ve just been able to get back to working out. I’m getting back to a better version of me.
Q: How painful was it at the end where it was kind of like, I can’t keep working through this?
A: The way I judge pain is if I can sleep. That last match I had with Claudio at Ring of Honor (on March 31), I was icing my groin area and I couldn’t sleep at all that night, and when I saw that I knew something was wrong. And I still tried to go to work that Wednesday. I got up that Tuesday to go to the airport and I’m out the door and I looked at my girlfriend and said, ‘I can’t get on that plane.’ That’s how much pain I was in. I was like, ‘Yea, it’s time to go.’
Q: Do you feel like you are coming back to a little bit of a different AEW landscape where your best option now is teaming with The Elite at Forbidden Door?
A: Teaming up with The Elite is what I have to do right now to get to Claudio. If people don’t like me and talk about it, I don’t care. Do something about it. If you don’t like something I’m doing, do something about it. Don’t just talk about it. Don’t just go to the promotor or the booker or anybody else in charge. Say it to me and let’s handle it. I’d rather be handling it in the ring so people can see me punk you out or whatever and trying to make money off it. If you want to do it backstage, we’ll do it backstage?
Q: Do you think there are people who don’t like the fact you’re teaming with The Elite?
A: Yeah, Jon don’t. I know that. But I told Jon straight up, ‘Bro that’s on you. You starting teaming up with Claudio and Bryan who you know I don’t like as human beings.’ It has nothing to do with pro wrestling. Claudio is one of the best professional wrestlers I’ve ever seen. Bryan Danielson is at a level of professional wrestling that people want to get to and may never get to. Wheeler Yuta is on the rise. People can say whatever they want. I’ve seen the kid from when he started to now and every second that kid gets better.
As human beings, Yuta’s easily manipulated, I can’t respect that. Bryan is a judgmental prick. I’ve said that before. I don’t respect that. Claudio and I have a personal history. I don’t want everyone to know, but Jon knows and Claudio knows it. He decided to go with them. Yo bro, go be friends with them but don’t expect me to sit side by side with you when you’re with them. I’ll protect you Jon, but I ain’t going to help them at the same time.
Q: Do you think it’s something you and Jon will have to settle in the ring at some point?
A: I don’t want to settle it in the ring with Jon. I don’t. I really don’t. But if it comes to that, let’s do it. This is what I get paid to do. If Jon wants to go that route and Tony Khan who books the matches wants to do it then I have to do it. If the boss says, you and Jon have something going on here I want it in the ring, let’s do it. I’ll go, ‘Yeah, all right.’ I won’t be happy about it, but I’ll do what I have to do.
Q: What did you think of how CM Punk handled his comeback and how he jumped into things on Collision this week?
A: He did it his way and that’s the way wanted to do it. I expected it. I knew it was happening, knowing Punk and what he thought was right for him. That’s it. I see the reports. I see the clickbait on YouTube. But the locker room is not divided, not the people I hang out with. Punk’s gonna do what Punk does and if whatever Punk does helps this company, no one can say anything.
Q: So there hasn’t been this feeling in the locker room that things that he’s said have bothered at least a large portion of it?
A: Not me, man. Not my crew of people I hang out with. Maybe there’s that one percent that are bothered but the people I chill with, they’re good. They don’t care.
Q: What do you want to pursue now that you’re back in AEW? Is it trying to get that [Ring of Honor championship] rematch with Claudio? Is it something else? Is it getting to the point where maybe you get MJF?
A: MJF is scared to fight me. Not even to fight me. That kid has been scared his whole life. That’s been proven by the way he won the championship and the way he defends it. I’m not hating because I haven’t always been Mr. Upstanding Citizen and I probably do dirty things in the ring. I’ll probably do dirty things at Forbidden Door, too. I know backstage, I know those people don’t see. MJF has been a scared child since he broke into the business. So maybe when somebody finally dethrones him I’ll finally get a title shot.
Do I want to fight Claudio, yea. For the title or not, I love fighting Claudio. I love hurting him. If I can’t fight. If I don’t have a war I feel useless as a human being. It’s a weird thing. I’m trying to work on my mental stuff, maybe that’s one of the things I have to work through.
Q: As someone who grew up watching Japanese wrestling, what does it mean to get the opportunity to compete in the G1 Climax tournament?
A: I worry every time I go to sleep I’m going to wake up and it’s not true and it’s all a dream. That’s how worried I am about that. The first New Japan Wrestling match I really sat down and watched as a teenager was finals of the G1 in 1991 between Keiji Mutah and Mashiro Chono.
I always wanted to be in the G1 and to actually have it happen I kind of look around going ‘I can’t believe it’s real.’ I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wake up one morning and they go, ‘Ha, ha we’re joking’ I’m also the kind of guy, ‘OK, cool this is a dream, but I’m also not going there to go ‘OK I’m here, beat me I’ll lose.’ I’m going there to win it.
Q: Was it something you asked Tony Khan to do and was there any chance of not doing it or just a talk with someone of not doing it because you are coming back from injury?
A: There was no way I was gonna not do it. There was definitely a conversation, but Tony (Schiavone) knows me and Tony knows I’m very honest, maybe too honest because I use rough words and I don’t mean to be rough. There have been moments where we’ve had a meeting together and Tony Schiavone will go Eddie, ‘Use a different word. Don’t go so hard.’ It’s because I’m passionate about what I do. We had a discussion and my exact words to Tony were: ‘How dare you f—king lay that question on me. I’ll be ready.’
Q: Do you plan on working Collision or had you been told you are going to be a Dynamite talent?
A: I wasn’t told anything. I was asked and I told Tony Khan I’ll do all three (shows). I don’t care.
Q: Do you think a brand rivalry can develop, let’s put on a better show on Dynamite, let’s put on a better show on Collision. That friendly intera-promotion competition?
A: That would be great because it helps the whole company. I think people get caught up with which show is better, that show is better. If we all as a company strive to makes every show better than the next it helps AEW. I hope there’s that rivalry as long as friendly nobody says anything stupid about me.