When Adam Copeland took the ring for what very well might be his final match in the WWE Universe, a main event bout against Sheamus on SmackDown in his home-ish town of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, fans from across the professional wrestling world wondered what was next for the “Rated-R Superstar.”
Would he work out a new, long-term deal with the promotion that kept him a full-time wrestler? Would he accept taking a backseat to the next generation of wrestlers and signing a Legends deal to become an even more special attraction? Or would he leave the promotion entirely to sign elsewhere, likely AEW?
Sitting down for an interview with TSN ahead of Worlds End, Copeland revealed just how proud he was to wrestle in Toronto before discussing his thought process heading into the match.
“I'm very proud of that match. I'm very proud of that night, that moment. I'm so happy that I got to share the ring with him after all those years. To me, it was never about is it a WrestleMania or is it a stadium [for a final match]. It was never about that for me, and it still isn't,” Adam Copeland said before turning his attention to his plans after the match.
“I was truly undecided. Maybe I'm just done. Like that was a viable, viable option. But I was able to sit back at 49 years old, look at it, and go, ‘Okay, right. Here I am. I spent 25 years in this place. What else is there to do?' It didn't seem like there was a whole lot to do. I was kind of the ‘Break glass in case of emergency' [guy], and there's nothing wrong with that, but I just looked at what I have left and the time that I have left to give what I have left, and then it became kind of a no-brainer, especially after talking to my girls. That was all true. I sat down with them and said: ‘What do I do?' [They said] ‘Go be with Uncle Jay. You'll have more fun.' And I said, ‘You know what? You're absolutely right,' and they have been right.”
Is Copeland being truthful? Did he really not know where he would land, or was he instead purposefully putting off the decision in order to “leave it all in the ring” ahead of a match that may cap off 25 years of his life? Either way, it's safe to say the match delivered a fond farewell for WWE-only fans to the Edge character and helped to close a chapter as Copeland turned his attention to a future in AEW.
Adam Copeland is thrilled by the freedom AEW offers.
Elsewhere in his conversation with TSN, Adam Copeland decided to touch on what he's excited about in AEW versus his career in WWE.
Though Copeland has made it abundantly clear that he has no desire to slander WWE, he is incredibly jazzed by the idea of how hands-on he can be in AEW, which simply isn't afforded to even the top stars in WWE.
“I've always been afforded a certain amount of freedom with time put in, right? But here, it's really felt fresh in that regard. It's like, ‘Hey, let's see what I can cook up.' Sometimes, I'll be on a flight, and an idea will pop up, and I'll put it in my notes, and I'll go, ‘Ooh, I think this could work.' That's just really fun because I like to be very engaged and very hands-on with all of my stuff, to the point where it's probably been annoying over the years. But if I have to go out and portray that character, I also have to believe and be able to invest in it, too, and that hasn't been a problem with AEW,” Adam Copeland told TSN.
“I can't say it's ever really been a problem except for maybe at the beginning of my career when I was really trying to find my footing, but that's just been really fun to navigate this thing and also to come in and, in a way, kind of start slow by design and then start to pick things up when the time was right in terms of story. That's been fun, too, just to have a plan as to where this character is going and I know people get impatient, especially nowadays with social media when it doesn't happen right away and it's taking too long, but I'm always a long game guy. I already have a plan for what Adam Copeland does at the very end of this thing and a whole lot of plans leading up to it, too.”
In wrestling, like acting, performers really have to believe in what they are portraying for it to really jump off the screen and touch the hearts and imaginations of fans across the world. While it's anyone's guess if Christian Cage really believes in being the defender of single mothers the world over, it's clear this version of Copeland is as close to the real Adam as you will find across his professional wrestling career.