Eddie Kingston is an AEW homer.

After spending the better part of 20 years bouncing around the indie world looking for a long-term home, working for everyone from Chikara to Impact, PWG, and CZW, Kingston finally found a home on a nationally televised wrestling promotion, turning a tryout match versus Cody Rhodes for the TNT Championship match into an incredible run and not one, not, two, but three championship belts around his waist.

And yet, for as much as Kingston talks smack on WWE whenever given a chance, he doesn't want to see the promotion fail, as, in a conversation with ESPR, the “Mad King” let it be known that he wants to see as many people as possible earn a living from professional wrestling.

“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 ‘I hope 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; this is you being nasty and not understanding what life is about. To me, that's wrong,” Eddie Kingston told ESPR via Fightful.

“I'm a Yankee fan, but I don't hope the Red Sox players get hurt or injured. People are like, ‘You talk crap about WWE.' Yeah, just like I talk crap about the Boston Red Sox. AEW is my team, the Yankees are my team, the Giants are my team. The Giants, this year, were not good, but I'll sit there and say, screw the Cowboys, screw the Eagles, even though they are in the playoffs and doing their thing. Still, as a Giants fan, I'm going to say that. Just like I'm a fan of AEW, I'm going to say everybody else sucks, even though it's not true. Just like people in WWE will say AEW sucks and they are the best. You stick with your team, and that's it. I don't want [any company] to close because I have a couple of people who I consider friends over at WWE, and I don't want them to lose their jobs. They have a wife and kids. I want them to feed their families. Those guys don't want me to lose a job. These fans don't get there. We're all pulling for each other. We want everybody to eat, but we want our people to eat first and eat more, that's it, but everyone can eat.”

You know, that's a surprisingly refreshing take that makes a ton of sense; while some fans are hoping to see AEW lose its spot with Warner Bros Discovery because they don't believe the promotion deserves to be in the same conversation as the “World Leader in Sports Entertainment,” any downgrade for Tony Khan's company would inevitably lead to fewer jobs both in front of and behind the camera. For wrestling to thrive, there needs to be multiple companies doing incredible work, as Kingston knows very well.

Eddie Kingston explains his relationship with social media.

Elsewhere in his conversation with ESPR, Eddie Kingston was asked about social media, where wrestling discourse thrives in an albiet very contentious landscape.

While Kingston has been known to use social media in the past, famously offering to sell his boots to help pay rent before signing with AEW on Twitter, he is now inactive on the platform, as he feels it's an overwhelming source of negativity.

“Twitter's just not healthy, man. I usually ignore Twitter because everybody does the same low-hanging fruit jokes or whatever, and that's fine. I'm also the same guy that's like, ‘If you don't like it, then don't watch.' I don't care. I get paid the same. You not watching does not affect me. I'm in the ring and doing my thing. Why does that affect you? To me, I go, ‘Something's wrong with your life. You need some help,'” Eddie Kingston told ESPR via No DQ.

“I saw something that someone wrote, something real nasty about Riho, one of the wrestlers in AEW. I was just like, ‘Oh, this is gross.' It was someone who just decided to open up a Twitter that day just to say something nasty. They had like the little egg on it or whatever. I was like, ‘This dude took time out of his day to make a profile page just to write this nasty stuff.' I was like, ‘I'm done, and I deleted the app,' and I was like, ‘I'm over it.' You know, to me, that was ugly, and I didn't want to be associated with that ugliness.”

Considering everything Kingston has been through during his professional wrestling career, and how often he's the topic of body shaming on social media, it makes sense that the “Mad King” would want to take a step back and disconnect from the discourse. Fortunately, with three championship belts around his waist, he should have plenty of activities to keep himself busy.