The friendship between Eddie Kingston and Jon Moxley dates back to their time before Moxley became Dean Ambrose in WWE.
Once both men landed in AEW, they were enemies on-screen, leading to an I Quit match at AEW Full Gear 2020. Before the match, the two were involved in a heated segment on Dynamite where personal shots were taken, playing off their years of knowing each other.
Speaking to Alex McCarthy of TalkSPORT, Kingston recalled the segment and how he felt about it.
“That was so much fun to be in there with him. A lot of it was just… I don’t think about what I’m going to say and neither does Mox. We may have a line in our head and we’re like ‘aight, we’re just gonna say that line and see how the people react or our opponents react’ then we see what comes into our heads after that so we can be from the heart. It’s not scripted,” said Kingston. “I’m not against scripts. I know a lot of people are. I’m not against it because some people need it. Some people don’t. Me and Jon are two people who are lucky enough, well, Jon is talented enough, I’m lucky enough [laughs] where I can’t remember things, so you can’t give me a script! You got to give me little points and then I can work with that and build off that. That whole face-to-face wasn’t supposed to happen like that, we just got into it. We felt the moment and we spoke about certain things that are real life in there to mix in with the wrestling,”
Moxley was victorious in the bout, successfully defending his AEW World Title, but the story between the two men was not over. They would eventually become a tag team on television after Kingston protected Moxley from the explosion at AEW Revolution.
While continuing to discuss the Dynamite segment with Moxley, Kingston recalled Moxley pushing for him to be signed by WWE.
“At the end you’re just so amped up and you’re so… I don’t know. I go into a different world when I’m out there, you know what I mean? So when I come through the curtain I’m not thinking ‘Oh, man. That was great!’ or anything else, I need a minute or two to get away from everyone to breath and then come back to this reality, or whatever you want to call it. Afterwards we were like ‘well, it felt good!’ Jon loved it, of course. Jon has been one of the biggest advocates for me in my whole career since we met. A lot of people don’t know that he was trying to get me into WWE years ago. Trying his best to do what he could. ‘Hey, I told this guy to check you out,'" said Kingston. “And this is me and Jon not talking for years and out of nowhere he’ll text me ‘Hey, I told so and so to watch your match from blah blah blah’ and I’ll be like ‘Who is this?’ And he’ll be like ‘Jon’ and I’ll be like ‘Oh hey, what’s up Mox?’ [laughs]. That’s the kind of friends we are."
On AEW television, Moxley and Kingston would go on to feud with the Young Bucks, challenging for the AEW Tag Team Titles at Double or Nothing.
Kingston continues to support Moxley on-screen and interviews after it was announced that Moxley had entered inpatient alcohol treatment.
Fightful will have live coverage of AEW Holiday Bash beginning at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
