When Edge, aka the “Rated-R Superstar,” aka Adam Copeland, returned to WWE in 2020 after nearly a decade on the shelf, it created a golden opportunity for the WWE Hall of Famer to check a few more items off of his wrestling wish list.

At the top of Copeland's list? Wrestle the “Greatest Wrestling Match Ever.”

A lofty goal? You bet, but hey, after being told you'd never wrestle again, why not shoot for the moon, right? It's not like fans would hold it against Edge and his in-ring dance partner, Randy Orton, for having a wrestling match that wasn't on par with what New Japan Pro Wrestling or AEW was doing, as they were working within the confines of Vince McMahon's WWE, which famously was far more concern for dramatic storytelling than delivering five-star wrestling matches, but hey, when you use a name like that, it's almost begging for comparisons.

Sitting down for an interview with Chris Jericho on his Talk is Jericho podcast, Copeland explained the challenge of naming a wrestling match the “Greatest Wrestling Match of All Time,” as, in the end, it's all subjective.

“It's the toughest. I might be biased, but I think that's the toughest position,” Adam Copeland said via Fightful. “There is also no such thing. It's totally subjective. You probably think of a match when you think of your favorite match, and I think of a match, and then it's going to change. This month, it might be Austin [Steve Austin] and Bret [Bret Hart] submission match [WrestleMania 13]. Then it might be Nick Bockwinkel and Terry Funk from All Japan.”

Asked by Jericho about who came up with the idea for the match, Mr. McMahon or someone else, Copeland put it on Vince, noting that he thought to promote the match that way, and in the end, both performers were down.

“It was pitched to us like that. ‘I have you two guys. You're gonna have the greatest wrestling match ever.' ‘Yeah.' ‘That's what we should call it.' ‘Oh.' He's a promoter. That's the way the promoter brain works,” Copeland said. “Me, as the performer, I'm going, there is no audience, and there is no such thing. I really had to wrap my mind around it and go, ‘What angle do I come at this from?' Just make a love letter to wrestling. That was the idea. ‘Charles [Charles Robinson], I need you in a long-sleeved button-up and bow tie.' I want Howard Finkle to announce us. I want the old MSG thing to come down. Now, hopefully, people understand, ‘This is really just a tip of the hat to what we do.' Hence, using other people's finishers.”

Whether you like the match or not, it's hard to argue with Copeland's assertion, as he helped to make something very interesting out of an unprecedented situation in professional wrestling history. The actual execution of the match, however, left something to be desired, as the pre-recorded nature of the match allowed for edits that left Copeland out of action once more.

Adam Copeland talks the ‘Greatest Wrestling Match Ever's” reshoots.

Discussing the uniqueness of the match further, Adam Copeland noted that, after wrestling the match for a few dozen NXT students in the PC, he had the idea to do a few pick-up shots, which ultimately came back to bite him in more ways than one.

“What else are we going to do? Seriously, what else are we going to do? We had like 50 students from NXT. We did what we could with it. I also had a blast. I've often heard, ‘It was edited.' We did it once, all the way through, 48 minutes. We didn't have a time limit. We got to the back, ‘You guys went 48 minutes.' ‘Really? Wow, it felt like 10,' Copeland said.

“My stupid idea was, if we wanted to try different things, now we can. What if we picked up some iso shots? Might be kind of cool to cut in. I'm just trying to think of something different. I'm wearing a Go Pro on my head, and I was going to take an RKO so it feels like a first-person player taking an RKO. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. I take the RKO, and I'm really trying to cover Randy here because we've gotten cold. It's after the match, we did the 48 (minutes), we're just doing four pick-up shots. I take the RKO with a camera on my head, tear my tricep. It was an hour 20 in between. I took it too far. Then, I saw it with the edits in, and I hated it. Vince loved it. I saw the unedited 48 minutes straight through, and I loved it, even with no audience. Randy and I have great chemistry. I'm proud of that one, especially considering the scenario and circumstances, to walk in and still try and pull it off. I'm proud of that.”

Setting aside the torn tricep, which was incredibly unfortunate for the “Rated-R Superstar,” Copeland's decision to add in a few post-production shots did affect the match's standing in the eyes of many wrestling fans, with Dave Meltzer famously opting against rating the match because of the ability to edit it after the fact. Still, in the end, the match holds a special place in both Copeland and Orton's careers and is largely viewed as a success, even if it will likely never be replicated ever again.