Eddie Kingston lost a hard fought battle against Bryan Danielson on the 10/29 AEW Rampage, but it was made clear on Dynamite that both he and “The American Dragon” have their own battles with depression.
Before the brutal classic took place, Eddie spoke on Busted Open Radio and opened up about his battle that goes on outside the ring.
“I’m not going to sit here and lie and say, ‘No, I ignore everything. I just go to the ring and I do my job.’ No, I’m an emotional creature. People get to me all of the time, and Bryan’s definitely gotten to me. He wants to talk about hard work and this and that? Fine. Look, I don’t need to have a six-pack, I don’t need to be 305 pounds and 6-foot whatever. I know how to fight and I’ve been fighting and the game we’re in is fighting. I know what to do, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there’s a lot of things I have to fight through to get to this point and it’s not just physical aspect… what, just because my belly sticks out more than the next man? My fault, I like Five Guys, I like ice cream, my bad, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t wake every morning and I have to deal with my depression before I even get out of bed. And then when I finally get past the depression, then I have to hurry up and get to the gym then I have to hurry up and get to Muay-Thai training, then I got to hurry up to get to grappling training then I got to hurry up and get home and fight my depression again because something may pop in my head.
“Every day’s a struggle, I like struggle… I like it, without struggle there’s no progress. Edgar Allan Poe said it the best ‘to suffer is to be blessed’. So, I feel blessed. I work hard every day just to get past my own demons and depression. I have a lot of guilt for things I’ve done in my past. I got to deal with a lot of regret and a lot of karma that’s coming my way. So, when people tell me about hard work and they just talk about the physical aspect of it, that makes me laugh. Because I’ve always had a belly, sometimes it’s been bigger than other times, it depends what I ate that week… but I still get up and I still fight mental health and then I fight the physical, and then I go back to fighting the mental again. To be honest, there are days where I wake up and I go, ‘You know what? Today’s the day I’m going to throw it all away and just punch a certain person in the face’ because I have that selfishness in me where I say if I feel this pain, then everybody’s got to feel this pain. But then I’ve got to fight that, and people don’t know that, you know what I mean? And the people that do understand what I mean, I hope they watch and follow and they understand that you can fight past that.”
Kingston finished by saying people don’t really know what’s going on underneath and it’s easy to criticize, but he’s not here trying to be a babyface and he’s just speaking honestly.
If you use this transcription, credit WrestleZone and link back to this post.
Kingston previously opened up about his battle with depression, telling Robbie Fox on My Mom’s Basement that he’s open about his own issues because he wants to help other deal with it themselves. Kingston said he feels like if he can help people open up about their mental health or at least be less ashamed about it, then he has “won” because that’s all that really matters at the end of the day. Read his comments about being open about getting help at this link.
RELATED: Bryan Danielson Advances to AEW World Title Eliminator Tournament Final
"Without struggle, there is no progress." — Eddie Kingston (@MadKing1981) opens up to @davidlagreca1 and @TheMarkHenry on his daily battles with mental health @AEW pic.twitter.com/GglTnTZMVv
— SiriusXM Busted Open (@BustedOpenRadio) October 31, 2021
Bryan Danielson advanced in the AEW World Title Eliminator Tournament by defeating Kingston in a triangle hold. Eddie tried to hold on, but gave Danielson the finger before passing out. Post-match, an irate Eddie interrupted CM Punk’s promo which seemingly has started the beginning of a feud between the two.
This week on a LIVE special Halloween edition of 2 Dynamite Dudes On A Rampage, Marcus and Dominic scare up some good discussion around AEW Dynamite and AEW Rampage including a brutal classic between Eddie Kingston & Bryan Danielson!
