Authours Note: This is an old article I wrote aroound april time. I thought I'd wack it on here. Enjoy.
Daniel Morris on Edge.
January 8th 2011 I sat down to write my first wrestling column. The topic of choice? My favourite wrestler, Adam Copeland. Known by many as the WWE superstar Edge. I decided that Edge would be my column of choice not just because he was my favourite wrestler, but because he is one of the main reasons I have been a wrestling fan for thirteen years.
I also, decided to write a column on Edge in January because I thought it would be at least another year until he retired so I had plenty of time to perfect it and amend it as a fitting tribute for when he did bow out. Boy was I wrong.
Just three months later and Edge retires as an in ring competitor. So a new article was to be written. My first column was more of a career breakdown with my opinions (worthy or not) thrown in. This one is going to be different. This is my initial reaction to the shocking news; this is my opinion on a man who is a big influence in my life. This is Daniel Morris on Edge.
My initial reaction? Complete and utter shock. Like many other people the news was completely out of the blue for me. I knew Edge was beat up after years of putting his body on the line, but I didn’t see it coming. I thought he would at least wrestle (or should I say entertain) up until Wrestlemania 28. When I watched Raw on Tuesday, I was convinced it was a work.
Of course I immediately changed my mind when Edge started to speak. The emotion in his voice, the tear in his eye. This was a guy baring his soul to the people he loved to entertain. It was a speech straight from the heart and it was immediately evident that this was really happening, Edge was retiring.
I was devastated, selfishly so. I have been lucky to see Edge perform live, but only once way back in 2005. The realisation that I would never see Edge wrestle again, never mind perform live, was a huge blow to me. I just couldn’t believe it. I know it’s in completely different context and I don’t mean to be offensive when I say this, but I felt almost the same as when I heard Eddie had died. Just the realisation that I would never see him wrestle again was hard to take.
However, that feeling of devastation disappeared quickly as Edge started to speak. The line that really grabbed me was: ‘The doctors have told me that I got no choice. And thankfully they found out because I’m not going to end up in a wheelchair now.” – (Edge 4/11/2011). I immediately felt relieved that Edge had quit before the worst happened. I kept thinking of Edge’s career and it made me smile. Edge had given his life to wrestling and to see him speaking to the crowd he loved was just great. You could see that ultimately Edge was happy. He loved to perform and he loved to be in front of the crowd. He was happy to have just been there, so if he was happy, I should be happy.
I don’t think it’s derogatory to say that Edge didn’t expect to have as prestigious career as he had. Despite him always being my favourite, I never expected it. So to look back and think of him as one of the most decorated superstars of all time, then it’s amazing. Edge was truly a superstar and will be seen that way in annals’ of sports entertainment. A reputation he fully deserves.
Why did one superstar evoke such a reaction? Well as wrestling fans we are akin to picking favourites and even though I have had several throughout the years, there has always been one who has stood out from the pack. That one superstar that reeks of Awesomeness.
I started watching wrestling religiously when I was ten years old. When I first started watching wrestling in 1998 I would have to say the Rock was my favourite. That’s mainly because like most children I was rather fickle. In my school, wrestling fans were divided up into Austin fans and The Rock fans (apart from one person who’s favourite superstar was Billy Gunn, needless to say nobody liked him).
However, there was one superstar who I immediately took a shine to as soon as he appeared on the sceen. That superstars name was Edge. Even from Edge’s early days, I thought he was damn cool. I can’t really put in words why I liked Edge right from the beginning, but there was just something unique about him. I liked the charisma he bought to the ring and the mystery surrounding him. I don’t think it was because of his wrestling ability at the time because I was only ten at the time, but it was safe to say that almost from the start, I was an Edge head.
In the following years Edge developed into my favourite wrestler by far. He and Christian were the first heel tag team that I actually liked, which says a lot. I personally thought he was brilliant in E and C as they proved each night that they were almost the perfect package. They were the perfect blend of funny and serious. Their promos were hilarious, but what’s more, they could back it up in the ring. My favourite tag team of all time and in my opinion, the greatest.
Edge and Christian split up in 2001 and they both started to pursue single careers. It was evident that WWE were quite high on Edge, letting him win the 2001 King of the Ring. However, injuries always seemed to get in the way of his push. The pessimist in me thought that due to Edge being injury prone he would never capture the big one. I was happily proven wrong.
I have never marked out as much as I did in January 2005 when Edge won his first WWE championship against John Cena. This was at a time where Edge was a fully fledged heel. He was great at that. However, he lost the title a month later and I personally thought that was it.
Six years later and Edge retired an eleven time champion, A Royal Rumble win and one of the biggest names the company has seen. I personally never thought that would happen. Why do I think Edge got such a big push? Mainly because he deserved it. Edge will never be as good as Bret Hart in the ring or as good as The Rock on the mic, but what made him stand out from the pack was that he was good at everything. He was a good to great in ring competitor, he was damn funny on the mic and could also cut a great serious promo when he had to, he was one of the best heels in the last ten years and good as a baby face.
I think there are very few WWE Superstars past or present who can claim to be as consistently as good at everything as Edge was. Also, there is one thing that Edge is unparalleled by anyone in. That is his passion for the business. There is no one in WWE history who has been willing to do anything the company wants, whether that is jumping off ladders, being set on fire or washing his dirty laundry in public (his affair with Lita). Edge has been prepared to do anything for the business. He is the ultimate company guy and he was rewarded justly for it.
It’s sad that we never got that Edge vs. Christian feud that WWE had been recently teasing. Despite them no longer being brothers it’s definitely something I really wanted to see. I’m sure Edge is gutted that he never got the chance to put his best friend truly over. I do hope though the WWE push Christian in the wake of Edge’s retirement. Not for me, not for Edge, but for Christian himself, because he deserves it.
Seeing Edge pour his heart out on Monday and Friday made me realise how important dreams are for people and their desire to follow them. Here is a man who only wanted to do one thing in his life, wrestle. Here he is years later and he has accomplished that dream and then some. It must be a great feeling. A feeling which has inspired me even more to follow my dream of becoming a screenwriter. As his theme song states “you think you know me” and I think in every match he had he showed us a little more of himself. I think we do know you Edge and I’m glad that we do.
Hope you enjoyed the article. Follow me on Facebook
Daniel Morris
No comments:
Post a Comment