Unique is a hard thing to be in today’s wrestling landscape. Everybody does the same moves, the same style, and sometimes even talks the same. Following what works can make people become cheap imitations of whatever they’re trying to replicate. However, two wrestlers who couldn’t be farther from that are WWE’s Kevin Owens and AEW’s Eddie Kingston. In fact, these two performers are quite unconventional when it comes to an industry that often relies on a rinse-and-repeat formula.
“Why are they so special?” is something you may be asking yourself. To a non-wrestling fan (and sometimes even a hardcore one), these heavier-set athletes who wrestle with a shirt on pale in comparison to the larger-than-life personalities who sport six-packs, fancy outfits, and trendy catchphrases. To a lot of people, they may seem like guys you see at your local gym. To me, that’s the charm of wrestlers like Kingston and Owens. They don’t want to sell you on some personality you only see when the cameras are rolling—what you see is what you get, and what you see from them feels like real people.
Kevin Owens is a prizefighter who is willing to stab anyone in the back to achieve his goals and put food on his family’s plate. On paper, it sounds like the generic mission statement for your MyRise character, but the reality is that Owens is far more complex than that. Throughout his many changes in morality, Kevin Owens doesn’t become an entirely new person to fit the whims of ever-changing wrestling storylines. He remembers his grudges, he remembers his allies, and he justifies every decision he makes through calculated words—just like any three-dimensional television character would. You may disagree with the reasoning behind some of his more dastardly actions (how many times can he try to permanently injure his best friend, Sami?), but you can’t argue that this man fully believes every word he says.
Whether it’s a cellphone video recorded in his car or a microphone in front of thousands of people, Kevin Owens forces you to think critically, just like him. In a company that often expects you to forget about what happened last week, Kevin Owens is one of the few members of the roster who seems to actually watch the show they’re on. Calling out tired tropes, subverting expectations, and proving body-shamers wrong by doing highly athletic moves is why he has lasted a decade-plus in a company that is usually obsessed with the flashy and not so much with the substance.
Then there’s Eddie Kingston. From the Bronx, this man clawed his way from the indies to become one of the most beloved wrestlers on the AEW roster. At one point, it looked like he’d have to walk away from the industry, even putting his gear up for sale to pay his bills. Life, instead, had something else in mind for him. I first saw Eddie interrupt Cody Rhodes during a pandemic episode of AEW Dynamite, and from the moment he grabbed a microphone, I was captivated by the words he spoke. Hearing him talk, it wouldn’t be unusual to think that no one told this man wrestling isn’t real. The conviction he speaks with is something rare—even in the most seasoned of performers.
Much like Owens, Eddie Kingston is not the “traditional” looking athlete. While he may not have the gym-bro look, he regularly puts his body through insane punishment most others couldn’t dream of. It’s his intensity, his pride, and his belief in the vitriol of the words he speaks that makes any promo he cuts a must-watch affair. His words hold so much value that, at one point, it was a weekly gag in the infamous Being the Elite series that Kingston cut a promo on various inanimate objects such as a cookie and Sour Patch Kids, among other sugary delicacies.
In a world of wrestlers obsessed with being perceived as cool or out-of-this-world athletes, one of the lost arts is being perceived as a real human being. That’s not an issue Eddie Kingston and Kevin Owens have. In fact, they are two of the last “real”-feeling wrestlers in this industry. What they do holds value within their company. No matter who they’re fighting or what they’re fighting for, they make you care—because they care. As fans, that’s all we can really ask for.
