When the speech was over, he left the ring and the crowd chanted loudly, Thank You Edge, in what was not the usual half-hearted We know youre swerving us but well play along, but a very real reaction. As walked to the back, the entire roster was lined up clapping for him as he said symbolic goodbyes, and gave some goodbye hugs. It may not have been exactly what he envisioned his career ending being, but it was one of the most respectful endings to a career in a business that more often that not never pauses for such things, even with its biggest legends.
But business does go on, and the WWE depth issue is there. Right now on the babyface side, Smackdown is lacking someone for the top babyface position. In fact, the only real established top babyfaces left in the company that are full-timers are John Cena and Randy Orton. So this would likely lead to either Orton moving to Smackdown or someone else getting a big opportunity that they otherwise may never have gotten, whether it be Christian, John Morrison, perhaps someone else, or a top heel turning.
Injuries are part of WWE and the machine has kept going when bigger stars than Edge have gone down. But if you look at the roster, this is a big one and at a bad time. The top Smackdown faces as they head to Europe are Rey Mysterio, Kane and Big Show. Mysterio, who has been working a limited house show scheduled because of his own injuries, can be a top guy in tags, but the company has never positioned him to be the guy on the brand. Kane and Show are limited by size in the other direction as far as playing that top babyface role.
He noted starting in WWE at 23, and now being 37, basically saying hes grown up in front of the fans, and made his mistakes along the way. Hes talked about things like wanting to be a talk show host and other jobs in entertainment, and has done some acting. The idea of being a manager, a General Manager, a teacher in developmental, an agent or a television announcer would all be possibilities should be want to go back and do weekly television or go back on the road full-time at some point. And with time off, bodies can heal. Even if you go with the idea hes made peace with the decision, knows its the only decision, weve seen people come back full-time when you figure theyre done, and limited time. The good news is that they caught the problems early enough that hes expected to be able to live a normal life, and continuing to wrestle would risk that.
While he didnt bring it up, in his high school yearbook, there was a photo of him with the caption, Most likely to be WWF champion, so his interest in pro wrestling was pretty well known by that point. His initial training came, when he was 18 years old, from entering an essay contest where the winner would get free training at the famous Sullys Gym in Toronto under Ron Hutchison and Sweet Daddy Siki. He started on the independent scene at 18, traveling all over Canada and even the U.S. and Japan under the name Sexton Hardcastle, traveling with people like Christian, Rhino, Joe E. Legend and Sinn Bohdi. Edge & Christian went to independents in Japan under the name of the Canadian Rockers, and in a trivia note, in his first match with a major promotion, worked as an enhancement wrestler, using the name Damien Striker for a taping of WCW Pro Wrestling against Kevin Sullivan and Meng.
He finished his career with in what is believed to be the No. 10 spot of the last 31 years of company history when it comes to wrestling the most matches, trailing Bret Hart, Undertaker, Tito Santana, Shawn Michaels, HHH, Kane, Greg Valentine, Randy Savage and Davey Boy Smith. His biggest rivals, when it comes to having the most career matches against, were Cena, Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Batista, The Dudleys, Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit.
He got a 1996 tryout match after a recommendation from Bret Hart, and Jim Cornette pushed him hard to Jim Ross, who signed him in 1997. At the time, Cornette predicted he would be at one point one of the five biggest stars in the company. As it turned out, Ross was doing the announcing during the interview and Edge thanked him for giving him his first break. He debuted, first using the name Sexton Hardcastle, on November 10, 1997, the day after the famous Montreal Survivor Series.
He was given a long series of vignettes building his appearance as Edge, as a mysterious character in a trenchcoat in the subways of New York who came out through the crowd.
His television debut as Edge was on June 22, 1998, on Raw. He then feuded with Gangrel, including a storyline where Gangrel turned Christian on Edge, and then Edge joined back with Christian as The Brood, which included red liquid purported as being blood dropped from the ceiling. His first of 31 titles was hardly planned.
He worked the opening match at a house show on June 24, 1999, in Toronto. Jeff Jarrett was scheduled to defend the IC title against Ken Shamrock, but legitimately Shamrocks flight arrived late. Because they had a near sellout crowd of 15,220 at Maple Leaf Gardens, the WWE made the call to have Edge beat Jarrett with the idea of creating a local babyface drawing card they could depend on for the Toronto market. The idea was that Edge would win, and then it would be announced that because the contract said Shamrock, that they would reverse the decision after, but it would make at least the local fans think Edge was a rising local star who could be put in title matches. Edge at least went into the ring being told that. Jack Lanza even went to the ring and made that announcement after the match. But at some point, the home office agreed to a one-day title change, as the referee then overruled Lanza and declared Edge as champion. Edge then defended it and lost it back to Jarrett the next day on a PPV show in Buffalo.
Edge, Christian and the Hardy Brothers all made their names together in 2000, most notably in a spectacular three-way ladder match at WrestleMania that year with the Dudleys. They took the ladder match concept popularized by Shawn Michaels in his 1994 WrestleMania match with Razor Ramon, and took it much farther. While this was a key match in the careers of all six men, Edge has in many interviews had a degree of remorse about it, saying that they set standards too high, and feeling the match was so spectacular, meaning it would be done again and again, and it led to breaking down his body and leading to his broken neck three years later. Edge, in his autobiography written while he was out of action, noted that he believed ladder matches, which later evolved into TLC matches, should be done sparingly, and only on PPV, saying the matches shorten careers. The TLC match was created for a three-way match at the 2000 SummerSlam with the Hardys and Dudleys, which was so spectacular they brought it back at the 2001 WrestleMania in Houston.
Edge & Christian became a comedy tag team during this period, sometimes known as Team ECK (Edge, Christian and Kurt Angle) and would do their five second poses for the benefit of those of you with flash photography. They were perennial tag team champions before the plan was to make Edge into a big singles star in 2001, with Christian turning on him.
He had a number of major programs, probably the biggest being with Angle, which included a PPV match on May 19, 2002, in Nashville, where he beat Angle in a hair vs. hair match. Later, Edge & Mysterio beat Angle & Chris Benoit on October 20, 2002, in Little Rock, in what was voted the Observers 2002 Match of the Year.
But while riding high, in February 2003, he suffered a broken neck and later a broken foot and was out of action for 14 months. He was not as hot as a babyface on his return, and it led to him going heel. He was kept as a member of the upper tier, occasionally in the major title picture, but his career really took off in 2005.
The Edge/Lita/Matt Hardy angle started out as legit, and after an incident in real life where Edges car was defaced (not an angle) while on the road in the Carolinas, the company either believed Hardy did it, or in some form was responsible for it, as Hardy was fired. It is believed whatever romance Edge and Lita had was actually over long before the public ever heard about it, and before they were playing the role on television. Hardy discovered it when he found text messages involving the two. Edge was married at that point to the former Lisa Ortiz, and his wife went on a public tirade against him when she found out, saying that without steroids he would be nothing but a skinny guy with a belly. This led to the couple getting divorced in November, 2005 after 13 months together. It was his second marriage, after a stormy two-and-half year marriage to Alannah Morley, the sister of Val Venis. Hardy and Amy Dumas aka Lita were living together at the time, and broke up over this as well. The angle got uncomfortable at times, and ended up leading to Litas decision leave wrestling. While Lita moved him up a notch, it wasnt as if his career sputtered in the least when she left.
Edge captured his first world title after winning the Money in the Bank briefcase at the 2005 WrestleMania in yet another ladder match. The Money in the Bank concept was not established, and after a few months, it was rarely if ever talked about. After John Cena had won an Elimination Chamber match at the 2006 New Years Revolution PPV, Edge cashed in his briefcase and won the title in a quick match after two spears.
The title change was done at the time just to shake things up, and when Edge won the title, he was considered a main guy, but not a real world champion level guy. However, ratings went up, even more so than the usual post-NFL season bounce, including a Live Sex celebration with Lita that drew the highest Raw quarter hour in more than a year. They put a bed in the ring and the two went under the covers and were rolling around with Lita supposedly naked under the covers. Edge got up in his underwear which was an embarrassing moment. He also drew big ratings for a TLC match with Ric Flair in one of Flairs last truly great career matches. Even though business was up, the plan was for the title to go back to Cena, and it did. But the numbers gave the company confidence in Edge, and he was given numerous title wins, many of which came unplanned.
Before regaining the title, he worked with Mick Foley at WrestleMania in what was one of Foleys last great matches.
Edge won a three-way over Rob Van Dam and Cena, when the title was taken from Van Dam after he had been arrested on marijuana charges and the title was taken from Van Dam before he was suspended. Edge was scheduled to get the title a week or two later. He worked a long headline program with Cena, culminating in a match in a TLC match in Toronto where Cena gave him an FU off the ladder through two tables.
Edge and Randy Orton had a run as Team Rated RKO, in a feud with DX. Many of his title reigns came as a result of injuries, such as in 2007, when it was feared Mr. Kennedy tore his triceps (it ended up being a bruise) when Kennedy was going to win the title from Undertaker, who was also injured, so Edge was moved to Smackdown as world champion. Edge then vacated the title after a torn pec.
Then came the Edge & Vickie Guerrero romance, break-ups, wedding, fling with Alicia Fox before the wedding, marriage never consummated and eventual divorce that carried the Smackdown show from November 2008 through May of 2009.
After the storyline split, Edge & Chris Jericho were put together as Unified tag team champions in an attempt to elevate the tag team titles, which had been pretty much worthless in WWE for a long time, and bring them back to headline status. At the time, when Raw and Smackdown were kept separate at least a little more than they are now, instead of having a team like the Colon Brothers as unified tag champs who could work for both brands and on both television shows, it would be more beneficial to give this distinction to headliners. The plan all along was to have a nice run as champions, do an angle to split up, and lead to a feud that would be one of the key matches at the 2010 WrestleMania.
However, Edge suffered a torn Achilles tendon on July 3, 2009, in San Diego, and at first it was felt it could be career threatening. Jericho quickly heeled on Edge, calling him the weak link, and noting his new tag team with Big Show was far superior. While Edge was out, Jericho would continue to make remarks about him being the weak link, his frequent injuries and turned Edge face.
Edge made a quicker recovery than expected, and was able to come back to win the Royal Rumble on January 31, 2010 doing the same last minute surprise entry deal that John Cena had done successfully in a prior Rumble. This led to Edge challenging Jericho for the title at WrestleMania, which he lost. Jericho dropped the title in a Money in the Bank cash in to Jack Swagger. Edge then beat Jericho in a cage match to end their feud, and Edge was moved back to Raw and turned back heel.
Edge had struggled in his return as a babyface. While he had the ability to be a top of the line heel, he had become so loathsome with the character that people didnt get fully behind him as a face. The run was highlighted by attempts to get fans to chant Spear, spear, spear before his finishes that really didnt get over all that well.
He immediately turned back heel for a feud with Randy Orton. He later got into a feud with the mystery General Manager, which led to a memorable scene of him destroying the computer while a computerized voice told him to stop. This led to an exit, where Edge went back to Smackdown, but this time as a babyface, since with Undertakers body breaking down, they felt they needed someone other than Rey Mysterio as the top face on the brand. It was part of a trade where C.M. Punk went to Raw.
This led to one of the strangest feuds with Kane, as Edge kidnapped and tortured Paul Bearer. The program never really clicked as Edge behaved like a heel throughout, but was positioned as a face, with the idea he was playing mind games on Kane in an attempt to win the title from him. He finally succeeded in a TLC match, on the TLC PPV, over Kane, Mysterio, and Del Rio on the December 19, 2010, PPV. He largely held the title until his retirement. After continually beating Dolph Ziggler in title matches, Vickie Guerrero, now linked with Ziggler, announced on Raw on 2/14 that she would be firing Edge and forcing him to give back the title on the ensuing Smackdown show.
This led to Guerrero firing him and stripping him of the title, but Teddy Long, who had been the victim of a beating, returned on the show, reinstated Edge, and announced Ziggler must defend the title against Edge, with Edge winning. The program then ended with Ziggler being fired and he and Guerrero moving to Raw, while Edge started what looked to be a program with Del Rio, that would eventually also involve Christian.
Ever since Christian returned, members of the writing team had pushed for an Edge vs. Christian program, but were rebuffed because Vince McMahon didnt feel Christian was a main event guy. With the companys depth issue, it was felt Edge had to be used on top, headlining all of the Smackdown events. Just as it seemed they were about to start a program in that direction, his career ended.
