Will WWE icon Edge retire this Friday?
The Rated-R Superstar says he’s still mulling it over — although his present WWE contract will expire that night.
There’s been rampant speculation that the 49-year-old Canadian wrestler, born Adam Copeland, will hang up his tights after Friday’s SmackDown show in his hometown of Toronto when he squares off against Sheamus.
Edge’s longtime trainer, Ron Hutchinson, said the bout — being billed by WWE as Edge’s “25th anniversary special” — will be his “last match,” reports veteran wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer, as per WrestlingNews.
Speaking this week with ET Canada’s Carlos Bustamante, Edge revealed that Friday’s match will in fact be the last one on his current contract. But he isn’t entirely sure whether it’ll be the final match of his career.
“Here’s what I can honestly say, and this isn’t the answer that everybody’s going to want: I truly don’t know,” he said. “I really, really, with 100% truth can say I don’t know. And that’s strange for me. But I don’t. I really, really don’t. I’ve put some thought into it, but not a lot.
“This is the last match on my current contract, so I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I probably won’t know until I get to the locker room that night and just decompress.”
— Adam (Edge) Copeland (@EdgeRatedR) August 14, 2023
Adding that he’s feeling “the anxiety and tension that I never used to have” ahead of Friday’s match, Edge admitted that stepping in the squared circle has been getting harder thanks to Father Time.
“I’m going to be 50 in October. You know, it’s not easy anymore,” he said. “Before, what I used to just take for granted to be able to do, now there’s a process and there’s a fallout. There’s a lot, you know? And it’s the dream gig, but again, it’s getting really hard. So I don’t know. That’s the most honest answer I can come up with.”
Edge had previously retired in 2011 due to a life-threatening neck injury, but returned to the ring in 2020 with a shock appearance at the Royal Rumble. Given his track record, he understands why some might find it hard to believe he’s truly leaving the sport, admitting that he’s hooked on the rush of performing for a live wrestling crowd.
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“You have theme music and pyro, and as soon as that first chord, that first little note hits, people, hopefully, explode and you come out and get to have this reciprocal relationship with them,” Edge said, comparing the feeling to that of Eddie Vedder hearing an audience in Brazil sing every word of a song back at him.
“That’s addictive. It really is… That’s why they always say a wrestler’s never really retired, even though I truly did believe I was retired the first time.”
However, Edge says when he retires for the second time, it will be for good.
“This time when I do it, though, I’m done,” he says. “That will be it. There’s no coming back after this one.”
Edge, who’s a WWE Hall of Famer that’s won 31 championships in his career, says he’s excited to be able to “write my own ending this time,” describing his 25th anniversary match on Friday as a “full-circle” and “storybook” moment. He says his wife and fellow wrestler Beth Phoenix, his daughters, his childhood friends and his longtime trainer will all be in attendance.
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“It’s truly one of those deals that, as cliche as it sounds, [feels] like this is the last scene in a movie. You know, one of those feel-good movies,” he says. “And it just seems so surreal that I’m living it. I don’t look past it. I truly understand what this is. And, man, it still kind of blows my mind.”
Sure, once he calls it a career, Edge will miss the feeling of entering an arena to the deafening roar of a crowd. But he’s got a plan for filling that void.
“We’re going to get Beth to sign some kind of marriage contractual agreement that every time I walk into a room, the music needs to hit and there needs to be at least sparklers,” he jokes. “My girls will be holding sparklers. That’s what I want.
“They’ll be like, ‘Really, Dad? Again?”
