After years of fans demanding it and personal problems putting him on hiatus, Eddie Kingston is in Ring of Honor. Though he technically debuted at Death Before Dishonor 4 in the Cage of Death, that was the end of the CZW feud and Kingston didn’t roll over into a regular role. Saturday was his first singles match, and while some sources report he isn’t booked as a regular, his feud with the remnants of the Vulture Squad is far from over. This is it: Kingston is in ROH. So it’s time to refresh our look at him.
We all knew it was coming. Kingston visited Full Impact Pro, which is something of a farm league for ROH. While other indy stars flared up and burned out, he’s been visible on the scene for years. He wrestled an increasingly physical style. He refined his sense of character of speaking skills, things ROH knows it needs. He became a hot act in IWA:MS, which, if you ask a Mid-South fan, is a surefire way of getting booked by Ring of Honor. Then Chris Hero got in. Ruckus got in. Larry Sweeney got in. Tyler Black got in. Necro Butcher got back in. Human Tornado got in. The guys indy die hard fans were worried about or buzzing about (and usually both) slowly trickled into ROH, and then it was only a matter of when Eddie Kingston would get the call.
Especially when he first appeared in the crowd at Dover, there was a firestorm around Kingston. He’s fat. He can’t wrestle. Nobody’s seen his supposedly great promos. This weekend we saw an equally annoying wave of apologists, who were especially outraged that a guy whose career highlights emerged from losing would lose his first match. All of these things should be addressed.
The first and most expectable complaint is that Kingston has a gut. He’s actually not fat, but he’s far from Davey Richards or Austin Aries’ shape. How much does this really mean?
Professional wrestling has seen plenty of athletic-but-round guys: Jake Roberts, Bam Bam Bigelow, Terry Gordy, Vader, Mick Foley, Rikishi Phatu and Umaga. These large guys (all of them more portly than Mr. Kingston) managed to come off as legitimate threats. Umaga is one of the best bad guys in the world right now, and he’s both overweight and barely as tall as his former General Manager.
Ring of Honor has also featured a share of big butts (I cannot lie). Dan Maff was one of the first strong figures in the tag team division. Colt Cabana was beloved for years. Samoa Joe defined the ROH World Title, becoming one of the most popular and successful men in company history. And as Joe left, in came all three-hundred pounds of Takeshi Morishima for a nine-month title reign that was another of the best in company history. Bobby Dempsey is making being out of shape an art form.
The truth is that physique isn’t always matched to health or to wrestling ability. Some people are more comfortable being heavier than average – Steve Corino joked about his bigger backside helping cushion his falls. Samoa Joe wrestled hour-draws at a much higher weight than Kingston. Unfortunately Joe had to overcome a significant and ignorant bias about his weight before he became an ROH icon. It’s this same bias that is preventing a lot of juvenile wrestling “critics†from approving of Awesome Kong in TNA. The demand for perfect physiques is something we fans really need to scale back as we recognize the negative effects of steroids and performance enhancing drugs. It’s one thing to criticize dangerously physical styles, but it’s a better thing to accept their looks as who they are. This problem may necessitate its own column some other week.
Someone’s physique is related to his general appearance, and their appearance is related to their persona. Matt Cross’s act is entirely based on amazing aerial offense, so he tries to tone himself up into the tightest athletic look possible. Eddie Kingston thrives off of a vibrant, selfishly vicious personality that is suitable to his build. That personality is best-displayed when he gets a chance to talk.
A lot of people haven’t seen many or any of his promos yet, but you can check them out for yourself on Youtube. If you watch much Chikara, you may have already seen that Kingston is breaking out of one of independent wrestling’s worst stereotypes: he’s not cussing so much anymore. Say what you will about Shane Douglas, but a big part of his legacy is drawing cheap attention through profanity. Too many guys do that today, and Kingston used to. Now his monologues are more focused on why he actually has grievances or what he’s feeling, speaking emotionally and pacing his words for an emphasis that most people ignore in favor of cheap shortcuts. When he is calm he can be eerie and uneasing; when he’s outraged, he can be furious or discordant to a schizophrenic level. He has a habit of smiling like something else is coming into his mind, or tripping over his own words like he’s going to go off the subject. These things draw the viewer in, helping them believe he means what he says – if his mind is going to other topics within the sphere of his character, then he’s approaching a second level of storyline, helping take your mind off the fact that the first is built on top of fiction. He isn’t the guy who forgets his lines; he’s a character who has too much on his mind. His voice will be welcome in ROH.
His wrestling ability is another matter. I’ve seen plenty of Eddie Kingston, and he has had a lot of garbage matches. Not only matches where weapons were overused, but just poorly-constructed stuff. However, he’s drastically improved in the last year and a half. His primary strength is brawling, and he has a weird brawling ability: he can have really intense fights with guys that don’t normally have a lot of high-quality intense fights. I don’t mind saying that Kingston got the best brawls of Hero’s career out of that man across CZW and IWA:MS. At Chikara’s “Chapter 11,†Kingston had a standout fight with Hallowicked, someone who I’ve never seen praised for brawling ability.
In addition, for all the bluster that moves aren’t everything, moves are awesome. Moves alone could very well make Kingston popular. He does a Suplex where he drops the guy on his head. He chops really hard. He has a running kick to the face. ROH crowds eat that stuff up. People are going to be mimicking the Spinning Backfist as they walk to their cars after shows. And if Kingston can connect through a few pieces of vicious offense, he’ll have the hook he needs to fine-tune his sense of timing and really get things going.
That said, Kingston is imperfect, and both people who hate him and people who haven’t heard of him should be skeptical of fans that say he’s the best on the indies. Don’t inflate your expectations. He’s not a flyer, and he’s not particularly adept with aerial opponents. He can be downright awkward in technical wrestling encounters. If you haven’t seen him, expect a mouthy brawler that’s willing to experiment. His greatest skill is using what talents he has to tell stories. If he turns out to be right for your tastes, then bravo.
Another of his great strengths is the ability to rebound from losses. Some of his bets storylines elsewhere, such as the feuds with Hero and Hallowicked, were strung along by disappointing defeats. When people bellyached over him losing Saturday, I had to wonder if they even watched him in other promotions. The guy gets more interesting when he’s fuming over a loss, and unless he forgot everything he knew in every other promotion, he should have been able to look impressive in defeat. That is, if many people pay attention to his match – lest we forget that this was a DVD extra.
Ignore that Bryan Danielson, Austin Aries, Jimmy Jacobs, Roderick Strong, Chris Hero, El Generico, Kevin Steen and Nigel McGuinness all lost their first matches in the company. It was Jigsaw’s second match of the night? It was also Jay Lethal’s second match of the night when he finally beat Low Ki way back when. This feud would have died on Saturday if Kingston had crushed Jigsaw, as he was less credible than a physically bigger rookie thanks to inconsistent booking. The main reason most of us (myself included) figured Kingston would win was we thought ROH didn’t care. Apparently they do.
It’s now up to them to actually do something with Jigsaw and flesh the feud out, and there is a lot more upside for Jigsaw getting a victory in an emotional situation than there is downside for Kingston losing to the guy he bullied. ROH has a habit of making wins very important and losses very unimportant; the winner is elevated, but the loser isn’t unless it’s rubbed in or a pattern emerges, like a losing streak or someone choking in title matches. Austin Aries managed to remain very competent early this year despite a win drought.
In addition, PWInsider reports Kingston isn’t even booked regularly yet. This may mean he’s not wrestling full time yet. We don’t know what made him take his hiatus, only that it was important enough for him to drop vital pushes in IWA:MS and PWG and disappear on his big shot in ROH. Especially since his problems may not be completely concluded, may have left him less confident or reliable to the company, and because one of his greatest talents is responding to defeat, the loss isn’t a big deal. I get wanting your favorite guys to always win, but let’s not be childish. His supporters would be better suited to civilized disagreements, especially since so many of his detractors have already cornered the market on petulance.
The last and most disconcerting complaint against Kingston is that he’s yet another CZW guy coming into ROH. This belies more than a little ignorance of two major factors: Kingston isn’t from CZW, and ROH doesn’t invent most of its talent. Low Ki, Bryan Danielson and Christopher Daniels were indy superstars before the company started. CM Punk, Colt Cabana, Chris Hero, Jimmy Jacobs and Delirious were in IWA:MS first – all of them champions there before they came here. Kevin Steen, El Generico and Davey Richards were all in PWG long before they were ROH regulars. Austin Aries walked out of ECWA’s Super 8 and into ROH’s heart. Samoa Joe was from UPW, and if not for a killer debut against Low Ki at Glory By Honor I, he might never have become a godfather of ROH. Much like ECW, ROH doesn’t train or invent most of its stars, but finds them and tries to give them an optimal platform. Most of the above wrestlers improved during their time in Ring of Honor, and some created or further developed personas, but they weren’t originally ROH guys, even if they became such later.
And we hardly criticize Takeshi Morishima, Go Shiozaki, KENTA and Naomichi Marufuji for coming from somewhere else.
Eddie Kingston is, if anything, a Chikara guy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Delirious visits there frequently. Chris Hero is a trainer at the Chikara school. Claudio Castagnoli, Jigsaw, Gran Akuma and Hallowicked were all students of that school. Kingston actually ran through a storyline of bitterness towards other students for getting opportunities in companies like ROH while he was left behind – something that would be really interesting if converted to ROH now, considering his primary target is Jigsaw.
And don’t ignore that Kingston’s travels through Chikara, IWA:MS and other groups have given him experience with members of ROH’s current roster. He had a critical darling of a feud with Chris Hero, and the chemistry they found together elsewhere could easily be converted to entertainment here. Experience wrestling Jigsaw or Necro Butcher elsewhere can only help when he crosses their paths in ROH.
But even then, Kingston shouldn’t be “a Chikara guy.†He’s not an IWA:MS guy. He’s not a CZW guy. He’s a talented professional wrestler who deserves to work where he can. This is a sad root argument that diehard fans of any company seem to fall into. El Generico isn’t a PWG guy that ROH stole – he’s a great wrestler that got a break in two companies, and he gives his all to both. If Kingston gives his all to ROH, he shouldn’t deserve to be “a _____ guy.â€
Silliest and saved for last, some people complain about his attire. If you hate Eddie Kingston’s baggy pants, I really don’t have anything to say to you. Naomichi Marufuji wears baggy pants and tears it up every time he visits ROH, but perhaps it’s the combination of Kingston’s ponch and baggy pants that drive you nuts. I’m sorry that they ruined him for you. E-mail his mom and tell her to dress him better.
With Kingston’s loss to Jigsaw, the BLKOUT/Vulture Squad story continues. Even if Kingston isn’t on the next show, he’ll be back for this. Whatever put him on that hiatus, he’s fortunate to have this current opportunity to prove himself on the undercard. Guys like Jimmy Jacobs and Nigel McGuinness took worse positions and proved they could play vital roles for the company. If he thrives as his fans think he can, he’ll be as indispensable as those men in the years to come. Or he could be out as soon as this feud ends. We don’t know. But we do know that he made it in. Now we’re left to count the hours to Chuck Taylor’s arrival.
Check back later this week for my review of Dragon Gate Challenge 2, a show that is definitely worth your money. Also on Pulse Wrestling this week:
-Big Andy Mac gives live impressions from Respect is Earned 2, ROH’s next PPV offering.
-The match listings for ROH’s next two mass-release DVD’s are out.
–David Wells surveys Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, looking at the results of the DDT tournament. On an unrelated note, I have a brother named David Wiswell. This coincidence is kind of creeping me out.
-And Pulse Glazer rolled a fatty and ran a fantasy draft for Raw, ECW, Smackdown, TNA, ROH and the indies in general. Who doesn’t want to read about Umaga being traded for Robert Roode?
