I’m a F’n Fighter and I’ve been a fighter all my life. How Eddie Kingston’s Dynamite debut saved my life.

Okay to start this is gonna be messy, it’s not going to be proofread, this is going to be as raw and real as the subject of this, whatever the fuck this is.

So let’s start this story at the beginning kinda, I’m a thirty three year old Non binary who knows what it’s like to fight for shit and who’s also a victim of sexual assualt when I was a minor. It sucks but it is what is I have continued to live and live a fuller better life. So that’s the important context of this. I am a wrestling fan have been since the 90s I fell off after Austin but I’d always come back here and there mostly for the games and my time spent as a modern wwe fan (I was a wwe fan from just after Mania 26 so and I left after 27 and 28 Mania’s killed shit for me. Eventually I found my way back when a youtube chanel Loading Ready Run launched their wrestling podcast just after AJ Styles WWE debut amd it got back in I was in deep for WWE and eventually NXT and soon not to long after I was also a fan of the indies and had my faves on there (Shane Taylor Promotions Shout out) but time goes on for me and my time in the fandom. Now it’s 20202 and the Pandemic hit and then we have Speaking Out the most important thing to happen to wrestling that hopefully got a lot of the creeps, pedos, and predators out of this fucking sport that I love, the sport that gave me back so much of my life and my love for life wrestling meant everything to me and Speaking Out broke me completely. I was burnt out and ready to be done but there was a Dynamite my partner got me to watch (she knew I still loved this shit but to see the sport I used to escape life bringing back my worst pain she could tell it broke me but she got me to watch.

Now we move on to the subject of this paper. I am going to paraphrase from Goodfellas because I say this almost every time I talk about him and it’s “For me that’s I met the world,that’s when I saw Eddie Fucking Kingston for the first time on Dynamite”. The Mad King, The Last Real Pro Wrestler, a true student of the game fuck you Paul! I only knew the name, maybe saw his face here and there but just no one in my circle or any of the youtube channels I subscribed to ever spoke about him (Dave knows wrestling, Wrestling with Wregret, What Culture and Cultaholic) none of those guys ever did lists vids that ever said his name I knew his name cuz I follow Charli Evans, Millie McKenzie and Allie (The Bunny) and they’d always talk about seeing him at shows, so I had heard the name but for me all it took was that Dynamite debut that TNT open challenge, no music, no fanfare just a man, a mic, his wrestling boots and his balls. “I am a grown ass man and I will put you in the ground and smile” absolute chills from that line. In the time it took for Eddie to run down Cody, Arn, and business as whole I was hooked, this was a guy from my neck of the woods, he was loud, cocky, arrogant, the kind of swagger you only get when you grow up the hard way our way, by the end of the match and fuck maybe during I was in a crappy gaming chair in our room in Philly and I’m watching, tweeting and being apart of that whole wave of posts seeing everyone I follow posting, begging and asking Tony Khan to sign that man. This night was my turning point Speaking out killed me and my love for this sport I wanted to be done. Luckily for me I have an amazing partner and I’m thankfull for her because she knows me better than I do sometimes. She knows what wrestling did for me, The ROH shows at the 2300 Arena, Progress’s US tour that included the 2300, the meet and greets at a comic shop that had been doing business with the wwe when it still had an f attached to it. She got me to watch that night and I’m glad she did. Seeing Eddie gave me hope to see someone like me in the ring I mean for me it was love at first sight, I made gifs for Eddie cuz there just weren’t any out there. I wanted to make gifs from some great promos I had been watching. I learned how to do it just off some simple editing and stuff because I wanted more gifs of Eddie out there. I mean if you grow up east coast in the Jersey, NY, Philly, Delaware area how can you not get behind Eddie he’s more blue collar than Dusty Rhodes, he’s the fuckin dream, and He gave me back my sport, he gave me back my peace and I’ll never be able to thank him for that.