Though Adam Copeland has officially left WWE behind, leaving his Edge moniker in the past in favor of wrestling under his given name as a member of AEW, there's been a lot of talk about his final faction in The Fed, Judgment Day, the spooky black-and-purple-clad conglomerate that both the “Rated-R Superstar” and his long-time frenemy Christian Cage brought up in promos over the past week.

Stopping by Talk is Jericho to discuss his professional wrestling career past, present, and future, Copeland explained what the original plan was for Judgment Day turned out much differently than what was presented on television.

“It was odd, you know? Because that's all I knew. And even just in terms of me coming in and out, I missed a lot of things. So I'd come back and go, Oh, this is happening now. Got it. And I'm just trying to wrap my mind around that. Because when we were doing Judgment Day, the plan was Balor joins, and about a year later, they all turn on me,” Adam Copeland told Chris Jericho via Wrestle Features.

“Well, then, we get to Hell in the Cell. And I was like, No, we're changing everything. And we're speeding up that year-long process. And he's joining tomorrow and turning tomorrow, it wasn't long, and it was just starting to find some legs. But it was gonna be swimming upstream with me. And it really was. And I started to have that realization. It's like, I don't think they're gonna get where they need to get to with me in this thing.

“Again, people know the real story. Right? And that was an instance where I did try and flip everything. Change it all overnight. cut my hair off. Change the music. Yeah. Start coming out in suits Like, like, I got 30 custom suits. I tried changing everything, and I realized at this stage, it's not what they want, at least for me. They wanted to be able to cheer for this guy that they didn't get for nine years.”

While it would be understandable that Copeland may be a bit peeved about how his time in Judgment Day shook out, especially after dropping likely thousands of dollars on suits and cutting his signature locks, in the end, the idea of fans getting to cheer on the “Rated-R Superstar” during the final act of his career makes sense, and is likely why Paul “Triple H” Levesque pulled the trigger in the first place.

Edge reflects on the importance of reinvention in wrestling.

Elsewhere on Talk is Jericho, Adam Copeland reflected on the importance of reinvention in professional wrestling, even after more than two decades of in-ring success.

While, by his own admission, Copeland could have kept wrestling the likes of Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Finn Balor, and AJ Styles in the promotion, as who would turn down the sort of workload, in the end, AEW presented a number of new opportunities for the final decade of his career, which is something WWE didn't afford Edge in 2023.

“I think anybody who's been in this industry, as long as guys like us, you're driven by challenges. You're not just going to show up to something, and the same old, same old is only going to work so long. And eventually, you've got to get challenged, you've got to recreate yourself, you have to reinvent your character. You have to make tweaks, things like that change your style, whatever that is, in order to keep yourself creatively stimulated, Copeland told Jericho via TJR.

“Well, that also goes to who you're working with. And I mean, I could work Seth Rollins every day of the week, and it'd be amazing. But we've wrestled now, okay. And I wrestled Finn, okay. Wrestled Roman, okay. wrestled AJ, like, there was a list of guys that I wanted to work with, and I worked most of them. And we just kind of got to a point, I think, you know, I've said, I think both sides were just out of ideas. And that's okay. It's no one's fault.

“I have a small window here to be able to contribute to the wrestling industry as a whole and be able to pull off matches that I want to pull off at a certain level. I know that the timeframe is small. It's not like I've got another 10 years left in me to do it the way I want to do it. And I wanted to maximize them.”

With 14 names on his wishlist, it's clear AEW presents Copeland with more interesting opportunities than what was left for Edge to do in WWE. In the end, if reinvention was Copeland's goal, bringing his talents to a new roster makes much more sense at this stage of the game than whatever he was doing in Judgment Day.