Adam Copeland, also known as Edge, made his first AEW appearance at the WrestleDream pay-per-view event on Sunday night. His WWE contract expired in September.
Copeland spoke to CBS Sports for a new interview and revealed that this will be his final run as a full-time performer. He said,
“As I got closer to the end of the deal, retirement was a very, very real option. It was not off the table… I really sat with the idea of retirement because I truly thought like, ‘Man, WWE gave me that night. I don’t know how that gets topped.’ And that’s still in my brain. But I guess now it’s like, ‘OK, how can I try and top it in this new environment.’ Honestly, that Toronto show was a send-off of that character and it was the perfect way for that character to go out. Wrestling a guy that I’ve never wrestled that I always wanted to. It was just so much fun in there. That night, I’ll never forget it. I’ll always have that night with me. I told Sheamus that too. That will be one of the most special nights in my career, always.“
Copeland stated that his AEW deal came together two weeks before his debut.
“It wasn’t until my contract was up on [Sept. 21]. It wasn’t until then,” Copeland said. “So it was really, really quick to get everything done and get everything dialed in. Figuring out so many things like getting with Alter Bridge and getting the music and doing all of those things. There were nine or 10 days. I didn’t know immediately, but I thought that’s where I wanted to go. I really thought that working with Jay again was what I wanted to do and how I pictured it in a perfect world. Beth said, ‘What’s your perfect world? ‘I was like, ‘My perfect world is that I end my career with Jay.’ So suddenly that perfect world looked like it could be there. It’s tough to pass that up.”
And finally, Copeland also said that he felt WWE lacked a plan for him, as he has already accomplished everything possible. He said,
“There was also the conundrum that I was contracted for 10 matches a year. I offered to do more, but to their point, it wouldn’t feel quite as special, which I understood too… It just felt like neither one of us really had any ideas and that’s never been the case before. So when you look at that and then I look at my best friend over there having the time of his life, at a certain point, once I thought, ‘You know what, I still have a window here where I can do this and I don’t feel like I’m maximizing that.’ I think that was really what it boiled down to.”
