Eddie Kingston has given details of the tryout he received for WWE before he decided to sign with AEW.
During an appearance on Renee Paquette’s ‘Oral Sessions’ podcast, Kingston revealed his experiences of the WWE tryout. Asked about how it went, he said:
“I thought it was fine, I was just me. This was the Performance Centre. Jimmy Jacobs hooked me up with it. For me that tryout was more for the Mae Young Classic because it was the biggest class they had for females. I was, like, I get it, this is for the females, I’m just going to go and have fun.”
The ‘Mad King’ went on to discuss being put in front of a camera and asked to described a drill he was doing at the time.
“They had someone filming there, and [WWE referee] Drake Younger grabbed me out of nowhere and he was like “King, tell them how hard this drill is”
“It was some dumb drill. I was like, yeah it was hard, “I’ve had people shoot at me, try to stab me, with knives and God I hate this drill more than that.” Put the camera down and everyone’s looking at me like I’m nuts because I said “guns and knives”. I said “What? Okay, it’s hard, what do you want me to say? [laughs]””
Kingston then had a similar experience during a promo class at the tryout, leaving the writers in the room dumbfounded.
“I remember I was doing the promo class and I said where I come from, they believe in Tupac more than Santa Claus and I saw two writers have this confused look on their faces when I said it, and I went “Oh yeah, I’m done, let me just have my match and I’ll leave””
Summing up the experience, he said he didn’t take it too seriously since the worst that could happen was that the company would say no.
“Honestly, I went in there like “well f**k it”, that was my thinking. I was like, what are they going to do, say no? I got three bookings that weekend anyway.”
Eddie Kingston will face off against PAC On this week’s ‘New Years Smash’ episode of Dynamite in a match that has been building since PAC returned to AEW late last year. We will have full coverage for the event right here at Inside the Ropes.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit Oral Sessions with a h/t to Inside the Ropes for the transcription.