Eddie Kingston

Edward Moore (born December 12, 1981), better known by his ring name Eddie Kingston, is an American professional wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) where he is the inaugural AEW Continental Champion.

He also performs for AEW's sister promotion, Ring of Honor (ROH) where he is the current ROH World Champion in his first reign.

Additionally, Kingston makes appearances for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he is the current Strong Openweight Champion in his first reign.

All three of these championships are defended jointly under the Continental Crown Championship banner.

Edward Moore was born on December 12, 1981, in Yonkers, New York, to an Irish father and a Puerto Rican mother.

He had a difficult childhood in the suburbs of Yonkers, constantly getting into fights at school; he credits getting into wrestling at an early age from watching old tapes, particularly from Memphis and AJPW as what kept him out of jail and trouble.

He estimates he has watched the June 1994 match between Toshiaki Kawada and Mitsuharu Misawa over 1,000 times.

Kingston worked as part of the Iron Workers Union (Local 580) early on in his professional wrestling career.

Moore initially trained alongside BlackJack Marciano and Jigsaw under Kevin Knight at the Independent Wrestling Federation in Woodland Park, New Jersey (formerly West Paterson).

After Moore was kicked out of the school, he became part of the second class of students to train at the Chikara Wrestle Factory, where he was taught by Mike Quackenbush and Chris Hero.

Kingston started his wrestling career in 2002, and has wrestled for numerous wrestling promotions, including Evolve, National Wrestling Alliance, Chikara, AAW Wrestling, Combat Zone Wrestling, Independent Wrestling Association Mid-South, Impact Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, and Ring of Honor (ROH).

Outside of brief stints in Impact and ROH, Kingston was a mainstay on the independent scene for 18 years before signing with AEW.

Kingston has been praised for his speaking skills and ability to cut promos, and is regarded by many as one of the best talkers of the modern professional wrestling era.

Moore made his professional wrestling debut, under the ring name Eddie Kingston, on October 12, 2002, at Chikara's seventh event, where he and BlackJack Marciano, the team known collectively as the Wild Cards, defeated Melvin Snodgrass and Lester Crabtree in a tag team match.

In 2003 Kingston and Marciano began feuding with Mister ZERO and UltraMantis, the team known collectively as Ultra/ZERO.

The feud came to an end on July 5, when Ultra/ZERO defeated the Wild Cards in the semifinals of the 2003 Tag World Grand Prix, after which Kingston and Marciano moved on to feuding with Team F.I.S.T. (Icarus and Gran Akuma).

The following year the Wildcards teamed up with Jigsaw to form the Toxic Trio, while Icarus and Akuma recruited the help of Mike Quackenbush.

On May 22, 2004, the Toxic Trio faced Icarus, Akuma and Quackenbush in an Ultimate Jeopardy match, where Kingston's, Marciano's and Icarus' hair, Jigsaw's and Akuma's masks and Quackenbush's various championship belts were on the line.

In the match Akuma forced Kingston to tap out and, as per stipulation of the match, both the Wild Cards were shaved bald, effectively ending the feud.

On September 18, 2004, the Wild Cards won the IWA Mid-South Tag Team Championship and enjoyed reasonable success outside of Chikara, until a knee injury forced Marciano into retirement, thus disbanding the team.

After taking a break from wrestling, Kingston returned to the ring in July 2005, turning face and teaming with Sabian, Equinox and Quackenbush to take on The Kings of Wrestling (Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli, Gran Akuma and Arik Cannon).

On August 13, Hero defeated Kingston in a singles match, that would lead the two into feuding with each other over at Combat Zone Wrestling, while in Chikara they were kept apart from each other following the match.

For a majority of 2006, Kingston had a rivalry against Larry Sweeney.

Kingston and Sweeney traded many verbal and physical exchanges for months, and the feud culminated with a No Disqualification Strap match between the two at Chikara's last show of the year.

Kingston won this match and the overall feud.

In 2007, Kingston turned heel (villainous) when he was pinned in an eight-man tag team match.

Following the loss, Kingston attacked Hallowicked and attempted to remove his mask.

The resulting feud lasted for over six months.

During this time Kingston frequently forced his opponents to wear a replica of Hallowicked's mask.

The feud ended when Kingston defeated Hallowicked in a Falls Count Anywhere match.

Kingston, along with fellow BLKOUT stable members Joker and Ruckus, went on to the finals of the 2008 King of Trios tournament, coming up short against the team of El Pantera, Incognito and Lince Dorado, when Kingston tapped out to Dorado's Chikara Special.

After the tournament Kingston was not seen in Chikara for two months, but when he returned in May, he quickly targeted the man who had forced him to tap out at King of Trios, Lince Dorado.

Kingston defeated Dorado in back-to-back singles matches on July 13 and August 10, but both times Dorado refused to stay down and begged for more.

On September 7 Kingston and Dorado face each other in their third singles match, which ended when referee Bryce Remsburg disqualified Kingston due to "excessive punishment".

However, once again Dorado refused to stay down and demanded the match to be restarted.

After the restart, Kingston had himself disqualified by low blowing Dorado and then walked out, before declaring that he was done with Dorado, since he was making him mentally unstable with his actions.

In late 2008 Kingston would team up with Brodie Lee and Grizzly Redwood to form an alliance that would later be named The Roughnecks.

In early 2009 The Roughnecks defeated the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple (UltraMantis Black, Crossbones and Sami Callihan) to advance to the 2009 King of Trios, where they ended up being eliminated in the first round by Team Uppercut (Claudio Castagnoli, Bryan Danielson and Dave Taylor).

Following the loss Kingston started a feud with Castagnoli, claiming that he had been embarrassed and disrespected.

On May 24, 2009, at Aniversario Yang Kingston, who had claimed to being able to outwrestle Castagnoli, pinned him cleanly with an Oklahoma roll.