AEW Star Eddie Kingston Offers Update On Injury Rehab, Forbidden Door Status
It's been one year and three months since the "Mad King" Eddie Kingston has appeared on any programming. Although his journey to recovery from a trio of unfortunate injuries, including a fractured tibia, a torn ACL, and a torn meniscus may have kept the former and inaugural AEW Continental Champion down, the injury did not take away his charming spirit, not to mention his sense of humor. While working out with fellow wrestler Cezar Bononi, Kingston reported some good news on the progress he's made towards an in-ring return, although the timetable of his comeback remains up in the air.
"What am I doing? Just more working out, PT [physical therapy] next week, 'cause I'm trying now with my sessions, I have very few left," Kingston announced. "Just spread them out...And then in the ring for more cardio...I went in the ring...I went in there with somebody who pushed me really hard the other day. I'm not going to say who it is...but he was just in my face the whole time. He was like, 'Hey, we're going to push you...' Wanted to go at least eight minutes. It was mostly grappling. I went about, I think, they said seven...but I felt in my internal clock of all the years of being in the ring...I felt like I went, like, 6:30. Maybe, six. And then I was like, 'Okay!'
Although Kingston sees Forbidden Door as a special tribute to men who inspired guys like him to take up pro wrestling, like AJPW's "Four Pillars of Heaven" (Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, Toshiaki Kawada, and Akira Taue), it appears he will not likely be making his in-ring return in London next Sunday, which thoroughly disappoints the former ROH World Champion. But by some miracle, he hopes the outcome is different.
"It looks like I'm not going to be able to do Forbidden Door again," Kingston said with sheer disappointment. "My thing is, everybody else has their favorites, and my favorite was always Forbidden Door. It's s*** I like to do. That's the s*** I like. For me, Forbidden Door will always be the big one...The Japanese dudes are my dudes. I wanted to fight Shingo [Takagi], Yuya [Uemura], Shota [Umino], Taichi. There are so many. Missing it, as of right now, missing it two years in a row sucks. Hopefully, this comes out and I'm wrong and I'm actually at Forbidden Door."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Cezar Bononi's YouTube Channel with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.