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I keep watching Wedesday's promo between Eddie Kingston and Jon Moxley. I talked about it on the podcast, and I may have been being facetious when I said it was the greatest promo that I'd ever seen. I mean, that statement is probably impossible to even quantify, with as much wrestling as I've watched in my 30 plus years as a fan.
At it's best, pro wrestling is the ultimate vehicle for stories no longer told. It's Hemingway & Shakespeare mashed together, a machination of our deepest thoughts and feelings.
Eddie Kingston is as close to 1985 we'll ever get. His story, his promo's are Hard Times 2020. Everything he says has a meaning, a reason and a point.
Every time I watch that promo, I take something different away from it. How in the beginning, Eddie is filled with bravado and childish recklessness - goading Moxley as soon as he gets into the ring. Dancing around to annoy and aggravate like a 10 year old at recess.
Just like that though, Kingston snapped into psycho mode, getting in Moxley's face because he couldn't trigger Moxley into a fight - and there's the crazy, if they had thrown fists, Kingston's shot at the belt is gone.
In reality, Kingston doesn't need the belt, he probably doesn't even want it, but it's a means to an end. It's dinner on the table, guaranteed. Because he's been hungry, he's been left to die.
What really worked about the promo is that it wasn't a promo. It wasn't' two guys reciting memorized lines - they talked over each other, they screamed when it was time to scream and they backed off when it was time to let the moment marinate in the hate.
When Kingston was brought in, I'll admit I wasn't fully on board with him as a main event attraction. I appreciated his resume, enjoyed his work in the NWA, and enjoyed his unique mic skills. He just didn't fit that main eventer in a "big company," mode that I've tried to get away from, after years of seeing cookie cutter champions in WWE.
He's Dusty Rhodes - a man that can work with the best of them in the ring, but doesn't look like an athlete when he's walking around on the streets. He looks like an everyday Joe trying to bring home dinner for his family.
And that's what makes Eddie Kingston the most dangerous man Jon Moxley will ever meet in the ring. Kingston doesn't have a family to feed; he's only got himself and his pride to answer to.
“I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.” ― Michel de Montaigne