Eddie Kingston Returns To AEW Dynamite, Sides With Elite Against Blackpool Combat Club

This week's "AEW Dynamite" ended in complete chaos, as the main event trios match between The Elite and the Blackpool Combat Club descended into a parade of surprise attacks. In addition to the renewal of hostilities between The Elite and the traitorous Konosuke Takeshita, not to mention upcoming AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door opponents Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay, the segment also featured the return of Eddie Kingston — who hasn't wrestled on "Dynamite" in more than three months and hasn't wrestled at all since ROH Supercard of Honor in April — who renewed his own hostilities with perennial nemesis Claudio Castagnoli.

After "quitting" AEW back in March, Kingston became a mainstay of Tony Khan's new online Ring of Honor show, which led to him challenging Castagnoli for the ROH World Championship at Supercard of Honor. Kingston was unsuccessful in that match (much to the dismay of the crowd) and later was forced to pull out of a New Japan Pro-Wrestling event due to a hernia that he could no longer work through. Earlier this. month, however, Kingston was announced for NJPW's G1 Climax tournament, signaling his imminent return to action, and on "Dynamite," he arrived in dramatic fashion, assisting The Elite against the BCC, of which Castagnoli is a member.

The move seemingly evens the odds between the two warring stables, with Kingston becoming The Elite's fifth man against Castagnoli, Takeshita, Bryan Danielson, Wheeler Yuta, and Jon Moxley. If that's the case, it's fortuitous timing, as the last two summers around this time have seen AEW pit teams of five against one another in a "Blood and Guts" match. Last year, ironically, Kingston was in that match on the side of the BCC, though the finish foreshadowed the idea that the long-standing rivalry between Kingston and Castagnoli was far from over.