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. After Castagnoli defeated Kingston via countout at the 2009 Young Lions Cup, the two of them were booked in a "Respect Match" at the season eight finale "Three-Fisted Tales", where the loser of the match had to show respect to the winner. Castagnoli won the match, but instead of showing respect, Kingston laid him out with a spinning back fist, after claiming that both him and his former tag team partner (Chris Hero) are shady and deserve respect from no one. At the end of the event Kingston's suspicions about Castagnoli were proven right as he turned "rudo" and formed the stable Bruderschaft des Kreuzes (BDK).