Eddie Kingston Calls Out Wrestling Tribalism

Eddie Kingston has hit out at fans who want rival companies to close down.

In recent weeks, social media use among wrestling fans has become a hot topic, in part due to Tony Khan’s recent criticism of WWE’s booking of Jinder Mahal. Khan’s posts led to a wider debate about tribalism among wrestling fans and how they discuss different promotions on social media.

While many fans can argue about which companies and wrestlers are better than others, there is also a subset of users who call for rival promotions to be closed down altogether. This is something that Eddie Kingston has now addressed.

During an appearance on the ESPR podcast, Kingston admitted that when he was an ECW fan, he would argue against any other company, however, that didn’t mean he wanted them to be shut down.

“I understand it because when I was a fan, I was all about ECW and screw everybody else, but I never said I want a place to close. To me, when you sit there and say, ‘I hope AEW closes or WWE closes or whatever’, to me, you’re a nasty human being because people are losing their jobs. People with families are losing their jobs.

“This has nothing to do with tribalism, or whatever. This is you being nasty and not understanding what life’s about, and to me, that’s wrong. I’m a Yankee fan, but I don’t hope the Red Sox players get hurt or injured or whatever.”

Explaining further, the Continental Crown Champion said as a fan of AEW he would tell people WWE sucked, but argued that was just sticking with his team.

“I’m a fan of AEW. I’m gonna say everybody else sucks, even though it’s not true, just like people in WWE will say AEW sucks and theirs is the best and that’s it. You stick with your team.

“That’s it, but I don’t want no one to close because I actually got a couple of people who I consider friends over at WWE. I don’t want them to lose their job. They got a wife and kids. I want them to feed their family. Those guys don’t want me to lose a job.

“These fans don’t get that. We’re all pulling for each other. We want everybody to eat, but we want our people to eat first, and eat more (he laughs). That’s it, but everybody else can eat.”

Eddie Kingston Praised As Modern Day Dusty Rhodes

According to his former ally Ortiz, Eddie Kingston is this generation’s Dusty Rhodes. The star explained that Kingston’s the “everyday guy” and delivers promos that come from a real place and “make you believe.”

H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the above transcription.