Kenny King hasn't forgotten the past, but won't let it define him.
After much success in both TNA and Ring of Honor, the Tough Enough 2 star is no longer the early 20s rookie he was when we first saw him. Now he's a traveled veteran, making his presence felt all over the national wrestling scene and looking to make new highlights everywhere he goes.
One of his old highlights was cut abruptly short. During his TNA run, King and several others were involved in the Beat Down Clan -- well, until a cease and desist from Lucha Underground cause the story to be stopped in its tracks. King still hears from supporters, too.
"That’s the part that really still hurts my heart to this day. I still get people on the internet, Twitter, Facebook, from Instagram, people that come up to me in person and say “Aw, man. The BDC was so dope. We still think about and rep the BDC.” It was just that it came to a halt in such a, I guess unceremonious and really terrible fashion. You build seven or nine weeks of TV and you have a group that’s the main focus for seven weeks of it and then you get hit with a cease and desist letter, everything falls apart. I was the last holder on, I think. My contract was up, I think I was out pretty soon after that," King recalls.
2020 is way different than 2015 for King, but has some parallels. Now he's a part of La Faccion Ingobernable, an offshoot of the Los Ingobernables stabs seen in New Japan Pro Wrestling, CMLL and now AAA. Though the idea of Rush, Dragon Lee and Amy Rose joining Kenny King for a new stable seems farfetched, it's not.
"A lot of people ask me this and a lot of people are curious about how this came," King said. "I think this best thing about this is that, just like the BDC, this is an organic thing. This isn’t creative saying, “Hey, let’s shoehorn Kenny King in with these guys.” I think it started when I met Rush for the first time when I did the CMLL [International] Grand Prix 2017. I met Rush, and met his brothers, Mistico and Dragon [Lee], and his father [la] Bestia. That was just a brief meeting, and then I’ve met Dragon and formed a smaller relationship with Dragon Lee as he was coming back and forth doing his little stints here in ROH because I don’t know if a lot of people know it, but yo habla español. So, that also had something to do with it. But, really, and we’re actually talking about putting something out about this, especially when I started taking Amy Rose under my wing, right? I saw that having a beautiful Spanish woman is always a bridge to different places."
With the new faction firmly in place and taking center stage in ROH, King sees the organic nature as something that's going to help it stay at the top of the card.
"I can communicate a little bit more effectively with Dragon Lee and Rush. Then it just became a thing where, I mean, Rush is Los Ingobernables, he is the one who started the whole situation. Everybody who puts their fist up or says “tranquilo” is paying homage to Rush. The day that, we had a couple of closed door meetings and what not, and the day that Rush asked me to become Los Ingoberables and told me what his plans were, I was very honored. It’s as storied a group or a faction as there is in pro wrestling. So, that’s what I think that’s what the best thing, and I think this is the thing the people gotta know about this is, the reason why it’s going to be so successful is because it’s organic. There was no guys with pens and laptops saying, “Okay, this is going to be a great idea.” This was guys that represent what Ingobernables means to the core, looking at me and seeing somebody that is exactly like them and knowing with our skill set there’s nothing that we can’t have," said King.
You can see Kenny King at ROH Free Enterprise on Sunday, February 9 at 3 PM EST in Baltimore at the UMBC Event Center. Free Enterprise” is available to stream free for HonorClub members, as well.
Photo Credit: RING OF HONOR/James Musselwhite
