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Eddie Kingston Living the Dream Against ECW's Dreamer

5/19/2010 4:05 PM ET By Brandon Stroud

Eddie Kingston refers to himself as the "last of a dying breed." It's pro wrestling theatrics, but close to the truth. In an independent wrestling world filled with glossy-eyed dreams and fannypacks stuffed with five dollar bills, Kingston stands out as an original. He doesn't seem to look the part. At 230 pounds, he's bigger than most. He hits harder than most. He keeps getting up when most would stay down. He fights hard to survive in a world where fighting doesn't always get you where you need to go. He's a heart, at the very least a ventricle in the heart of CHIKARA Pro Wrestling. There aren't a lot like him left.

Before Kingston, there was Tommy Dreamer. The beating, crying heart of Extreme Championship Wrestling. During the heyday of the Monday Night Wars, Dreamer stayed loyal to the Philadelphia bingo hall that saw him shed everything a person could shed. He hit harder than most, and kept fighting when most would stay down. He was endorsed and supported by wrestling legend Terry Funk, soldiering through the most publicized time in wrestling history. There is something about roads less traveled to be learned here. Dreamer never took the easy way out. He ended up with a twenty-plus year career, a beautiful wife, and a few World Championships in the bingo hall, in Madison Square Garden, and around the world.

Eddie Kingston idolized Tommy Dreamer, as if his mournful call for another of his dying breed had been answered. And after seven years on the independent circuit, Kingston finally found himself staring across the ring at the man himself. Dreamer made a surprise appearance at CHIKARA's King of Trios weekend, stepping into the ring after Kingston defeated Christopher Daniels to endorse the company, show his appreciation for Kingston, and offer the King of Diamonds the same thing Terry Funk offered him. A match was signed for Union City, New Jersey, and on Sunday, May 23rd, Kingston and Dreamer will meet one-on-one in a CHIKARA ring.

FanHouse had the opportunity to talk to Kingston, who shared his excitement about the event.

FanHouse: So I mean hey, Tommy Dreamer, right?
Eddie Kingston: Yeah, that's a little ... surreal.

I was actually at King of Trios, I sat behind two fat guys in baseball caps who were [heckling] you the entire match. I think I saw you tell them to go to Hell at one point.
Oh yeah, those guys.

How do you deal with that when it's supposed to be family friendly?
Uh.. I'm not really a family friendly kind of guy, but it doesn't really bother me, you know what I mean? But I like it when people hate on me, it means they're paying attention. If they didn't do anything, they didn't boo or cheer, or didn't do anything, then I'd be worried.

About Dreamer ... he mentioned that you guys both grew up in Yonkers, right?
Yes we did. I still live in Yonkers.

And he mentioned how similar you two are and how you've idolized him somewhat. Can you tell us a little about that?
In about '95... between '95 and '96 I'd like to say, I was kinda done and tired with wrestling. And one day I was sitting in one of my friends' house and we were watching TV, and he was like, "You like wrestling right?" And I was like, "Nah, I'm done with that" blah blah blah and he put in a tape... of ECW Gangstas Paradise, and ever since then... I saw Dreamer, and New Jack, and Raven and Douglas, and all these guys and i was just... I was stuck. So like, ECW brought me back into wrestling. And I kept watching and I was like, "This guy Tommy Dreamer is from Yonkers?" Yonkers doesn't really have a lot to be proud of, you know what I mean? Just one of the boroughs, you know what I'm saying?

I lived in Cleveland, man, the best thing we had was Drew Carey.
[scoffs] Well at least Drew Carey was funny, we had nothin' at the time but Tommy Dreamer, so I kinda connected with him, being from Yonkers and everything. And I loved the Raven character, so I thought it was just amazing, their feud. And then ever since then, man, it's been all over ECW. They influenced me... they influenced me a bunch. The reason I throw a suplex is because of Taz, the certain way I sell a move or react to certain things is because of Dreamer, the way I cut certain promos is because of Duougls and Raven... and other people too, but since we're talking about ECW it's those two guys, you know?

As a wrestling fan, is it a surreal experience to be interacting with legends from the glory days of ECW in the very same building ECW made famous? [note: CHIKARA runs many of their shows and operates their Chikara Wrestle Factory wrestling school out of The Arena in South Philadelphia, formerly known as the ECW Arena.]
Yeah, it was... Well, first of all, it was great to be in the ring with Christopher Daniels [during King of Trios weekend], that's another person I looked up to. Though to this day I can't believe he's one of the only guys I've ever seen not have a bad match, you know? i've never seen him... I don't know, the best way to describe Christopher Daniels in one word is "professional." He is what a professional wrestler should be, so being able to step in the ring with him, I mean, on its own.  Then I'm standing in there [after the match] and I see Tommy Dreamer, and the thoughts are running through my head... we're in the ECW Arena, I'm in the same ring with Tommy Dreamer and he's cutting a promo. And I was just in shock, trying not to break character and smile and ... be all giddy about it. I'm looking at Bryce [senior CHIKARA referee Bryce Remsburg] ... Bryce is one of my close friends, and he was on the floor and I looked at him and was like, "This is nuts," and he was like, "I know, I know!" It was really surreal. The night before Anniversario [Elf] I'm wrestling in Jersey against Steve Corino, who I also looked up to in ECW. So you know, this weekend coming up is gonna be pretty crazy for me.   The Tommy Dreamer thing ... I'm still, I'm actually nervous about the match, and I have not been nervous about a wrestling match in a very long time.

As a fan of Dreamer's going back that far, do you have any favorite Dreamer matches or moments that stand out for you, besides seeing him on tape that first time?
Of course my favorite Dreamer match was him and Raven, I believe Raven's last match in ECW right before Hardcore Heaven and ... the reason why that's my favorite match is because it's when he finally got the big win over Raven, you know, two years or whatever how long it was, and it was a great moment. Then the other moment was ... and this is what I love about ECW ... is that really never knew what was gonna happen. WWE had the slogan, "Anything can happen in the WWF/E" whatever it was then, but really in ECW you just didn't know. And when the lights went out and there was Jerry Lawler going after the heart of the ECW, you were just like [wow]. That was still one of my favorite moments in wrestling. And when Jim Cornette came out in ECW and everything like that, and then match at Hardcore Heaven, because it was kind of an old school Memphis style of match. Besides the Japanese style, I really love the Memphis style of wrestling.

You've wrestled everywhere from CZW [Combat Zone Wrestling] to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla to IWA Mid-South. How does the experience wrestling in front of those crowds differ from wrestling for CHIKARA, where you can't just grab your [junk] and tell somebody to go to Hell?
[laughs] Well, I was trained at CHIKARA, and CHIKARA will always be home. It's like, I got kicked out of one wrestling school and that certain trainer wrote to a couple of other trainers saying not to train me, and BlackJack [Marciano], and Jigsaw, and a couple other guys. Quack [Mike Quackenbush] didn't care, Quack was like, "They're mine." He either liked us, or Quack just wanted money, but either way, you know what I mean, he stood up for us. So CHIKARA will always have a special place. It's different, but I say it's more fun? To me from a personal level it's more fun, because to me cursing and grabbing yourself and giving the finger and all that is kinda ... that's just easy to do, it's what it is, it's what I'd do out in the street, but in CHIKARA you've got to be more imaginative. More witty than just saying, "Hey, F you" and grabbing yourself

I wanted to ask you about training at CHIKARA. CHIKARA's style is almost exclusively influenced by Lucha Libre, full of dives and acrobatics. How did you go about training in that environment and ending up as a mat-based guy who punches the crap out of people?
Ha, a lot of people don't believe it, but I was trained to do Lucha and all that, all the dives and stuff like you said, but uh, to me, it just didn't go with who i was. I mean, i'm a bigger guy, you know, bigger, fatter, whatever you want to call it, but I'm a bigger guy and it doesn't make sense for me to go out there and do armdrags and dives, which I can do, but I don't need to when I've got power other guys don't have, or when it fits me to just to punch a dude or clothesline a dude or suplex a guy.

Our audience at FanHouse is mostly WWE fans, TNA fans, and people complaining about them both. To someone who may have never seen you, to someone who has never seen Eddie Kingston, what do you say? How do you advertise that kind of style?
Well, I tell them I'm a real guy, you know what I mean? The Eddie Kingston character is not a character, it's who I am 24 hours a day. I'm that guy, I'm a normal guy really, it's just that I do pro wrestling. To be honest with you, if I wasn't doing pro wrestling I'd probably be doing something wrong right now. You know what I mean? Just to be perfectly honest I'd have so much extra time on my hands ... and I don't look for trouble, but trouble seems to find me anyway. But you know, believe it, I was always the kid who tried to be tough, or thought he was, and that's how I try to be in the ring. I don't give up. And I may not look like your typical wrestler, I may not look like I fit, but when you come see me, or anybody in CHIKARA really, you're gonna get a show, and you know you'll see something you haven't seen before, or something you have seen before done better. And I'm not knocking WWE, because they're making billions and I'm barely making anything. And I'm not knocking TNA, because a lot of my boys are in TNA, you know? Big shout out to Homicide, you know what I mean? So I'm not gonna knock them, but you know in CHIKARA, in all the indies but in CHIKARA especially, you get something different or something done better. One minute you have ants ["The Colony," a team of wrestling ants], you know, and all this other stuff, and you've got the BDK [the Bruderschaft des Kreuzes, a powerful group of heels] which I don't agree with, but whatever, thats thier deal. But you know you have them and then you have me, I'm just a regular dude who goes in the ring and fights. That's just how I am.

Do you have any recommendations for Eddie Kingston matches or moments people should try to track down? I know you were in the Ring of Honor Cage of Death match [at Death Before Dishonor IV in 2006] that got a lot of love.
I'm proud of that, you know. The big Cage of Death match was lot of fun, and just being in the Ring of Honor ring at the time. ROH is still a place that a) I love going to, and b) will always like to go to. You know, matches with me ... most of my matches I don't like because I think I can do better. There was a match between me and Samoa Joe, Samoa Joe is another guy. I have a lot of influences, and he's another big influence on me. Me and Samoa Joe from [NWA] Fight Spots Midwest, it was my first official match back from ankle surgery, so it was a big, I rushed back for that match. I was supposed to be out six months I came back in ... two and a half? Just because of that match. My feud with Bandido, Jr., in Jersey All Pro [Wrestling], I'm pretty proud of that. I had a match with Arik Cannon at CHIKARA a couple years ago. There's also my match with Hot Stuff Hernandez in IWA-MS, there's a couple matches, you know. I don't want to shill or plug, but if you want to see my matches go to smartmarkvideo.com, somebody decided to put out a Best of Eddie Kingston, so it's on there somewhere. [Note: Right here, actually.]

So after Dreamer, are there any other dream opponents you'd like to face?

People always ask me that question and there's so many guys that I want to wrestle, but I'm just gonna stay focused on this weekend, because this weekend for me is very huge. First Steve Corino in Jersey for Jersey All Pro and the big one at CHIKARA with Tommy Dreamer, that's huge, you know, so I'm looking to stay focused on that.But people who know me know I'm big into Japanese wrestling, so you know Masahiro Chono is a goal or a dream. That probably won’t happen.

You want to know what it feels like to get a Yakuza kick to the side of the head?

Oh, that would be beautiful. That would be ... I think I would retire after that. So if anybody wants to get me out of wrestling, for guys who don't like me, just get with the people in the know and book that match, there wont be me bothering you anymore. No more wrestling. I'll throw that challenge out there.

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Be sure you get to this weekend's shows. CHIKARA's Anniversario Elf takes place on May 23rd, 2010, at the ACE Arena in Union City, New Jersey. For more information on Kingston or CHIKARA, visit CHIKARAPro.com.