During a recent edition of “The Kurt Angle Show”, WWE Hall of Famer Edge commented on the differences between the current era and past eras, how character development has changed, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his chemistry with Kurt Angle and Angle’s role in his rise to singles stardom in WWE: “I got there eventually. You helped me get there. Hey, that’s honestly, that’s when the magic happens. When you have two talents or four talents, if it’s a tag team, whatever it is, that they are in this thing together to try and help each other along. To me, the end result of every storyline, every program, every match should be both characters coming out stronger. And I understand scenarios – it might not be where both can look as strong in a match. I understand that, but there is still a way to make the character look strong in losing whatever it is. But in terms of a storyline, I always liked to think both characters can come out stronger than when they went in, and that should be the goal.
“And I really truly feel like with both of us, you were already cemented in the main event, and you were helping bring me up. What that did was that it showed I could hang. And outside of a tag team because I was kind of labeled as a tag team guy because Christian and I had much success as a team. That can be hard sometimes to break out of. I know Bret Hart had a challenge with that. Shawn had a challenge with that. When you’re in such a pivotal team like the Hart Foundation or The Rockers, it can be hard to make your own way and our program together – that was the first one where it was like, ‘Alright, I’m finding my groove here.’ And I’m not saying this, but you and I had the chemistry in there from the first match, where it was just like, ‘Boom,’ we were locked in. When you’ve got that, that’s a gift. You ride that train as long as you can and hope that the next person you get, you try to find the same thing with.”
On his favorite era in WWE and comparisons between the current era and other eras he’s been involved in: “I think you can find positives in all of them. The Attitude Era, it was that spontaneous feel. You never knew what was gonna happen. It felt dangerous in a way. As a viewer, you were like, ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna get in the next two hours, but I can’t wait to see it.’ I feel like characters were much more developed from top to bottom. Everybody [was a superstar]. Somewhere along the way, that got diluted. The Ruthless Aggression [era] I feel is kind of the midway point where the matches started to get longer and better because if you go back to the Attitude Era, the matches were sometimes like two minutes long. And it was boom, boom, boom. Personally, as a performer, I’d rather be in a 22-minute match than a two-minute match, and maybe that’s dumb, honestly, because it’s harder on your body to do the 22-minute match. But as a performer, every time I’m in a match, I want to tell a story, I want to paint that picture, and I can’t do that in two minutes.
“Now, I look top to bottom, and it feels like all the characters don’t have the opportunity to get fleshed out, and I feel like it’s very micro-managed. I feel like a lot of the spontaneous freedom of that is lost. I feel like a lot of talent might probably feel handcuffed. But there are different things to answer to now. You’re a publicly traded company, you are on FOX, you’re on USA, and there are big contracts. So I understand. But I do feel match quality is better, and the athleticism, there is no comparison. What the guys and girls are doing now – I watch Ricochet, and I’m like, ‘He is the greatest high-flyer of all time.’ Like, he can do stuff that I don’t get. How do you backflip from your knees to your feet? How do you do that? So, I don’t know what the answer is, really, but I do appreciate the different sort of circumstances that talent have to try and get themselves over nowadays because I think it’s more difficult. Having come back now and seen it first-hand, ‘I’m like, Oh wow, this is harder! To try and present your story and your character because the format has changed due to necessity, due to those things that I talked about.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
