Eddie Kingston ‘must have quit AEW eight times’ during injury recovery

During his injury recovery, there were several points where AEW star Eddie Kingston felt like he didn’t want to return.

Kingston suffered a broken leg and torn ACL in May 2024 and could not wrestle for more than a year. The recovery process was taxing both physically and mentally — and Kingston’s “mental sh*t” led to him trying to quit AEW on multiple occasions.

On a new episode of AEW Close Up with Renee Paquette, Kingston addressed why it’s difficult for him to accept praise from people.

“I am flawed. Why the f*ck should I be adored?,” Kingston said. “I’m not perfect. I’m f*cking flawed. I make f*cking mistakes every day. Do you understand, I must have quit this company eight times when I was out because of my own mental sh*t. I am not a good employee. I’m not. I’m a pain in the f*cking ass because I’m passionate about it.”

Accepting praise is hard for Kingston because he still has a lot of guilt over things he’s done and the way he’s treated people in his past. He was brought up believing that you shouldn’t take the spotlight. You should just do what you need to do to survive and move on.

Kingston also finds praise uncomfortable because he still feels like he has more to do to raise both his personal profile and elevate AEW as a company.

In his return from injury, Kingston defeated Big Bill at AEW All Out this September. He’s now formed a tag team with Hook, with Kingston & Hook defeating The Frat House on the Tailgate Brawl for AEW WrestleDream last weekend.