Edge

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
/wiki/Edgecreator
Won it all, Done it all...

Edge (real name: Adam Copeland) was one of the top-tier professional wrestlers in the WWE. Referred to as either "The Rated R Superstar" (garnering the nickname after the details of his real-life affair with WWE Diva Lita emerged & became part of their on-screen personas) or "The Ultimate Opportunist" (a nickname inspired by his penchant for using any opportunity he can get to screw over his opponents and win titles), Edge gained fame in WWE first as a member of The Brood with Gangrel and Christian. Later on, Edge found superstardom as he teamed with Christian and the team feuded with the Dudley Boyz and the Hardys for the latter half of the Attitude Era in many memorable matches--chiefly Ladder Matches and TLC Matches. Edge would eventually break away from his tag team success and find singles success, then used his victory in the very first Money in the Bank Ladder Match to catapult himself into main eventer status by using the contract to screw over John Cena and win the WWE Championship. From then on, Edge was a main-eventer for the rest of his career--which ended in early April 2011 (following his successful defense of the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania 27). In a surprise announcement on Raw, Edge revealed that due to his spine deteriorating as a result of neck surgery he underwent years ago, if he did not retire, he risked being paralyzed or killed by continuing to perform in the ring. Rather than fight through the injury and risk his health, Edge chose to retire from in-ring competition--though he promised to be part of WWE in the future, and rumors were running rampant as to a future WWE Hall of Fame induction; they were finally confirmed on January 9, 2012. He was a recurring character on Syfy's Haven, and guest-starred on Sanctuary.

A quick note on how successful he was: during the course of his career, Edge racked up a total of 31 different WWE championship victories, more than any other wrestler in the history of the company - including 13-time world champion Triple H.

This Edge is not to be confused with Edge, a video game, U2 guitarist The Edge, Final Fantasy IV's ninja prince, the knife-loving Delinquent from Rival Schools, or the wielder of the Star Dragon Sword from Suikoden III.


Edge provides examples of the following tropes:

Edge: WHY DO YOU KEEP INTERFERING IN MY BUSINESS?! WH--(Beat)...why am I arguing with a computer?

  • Arch Enemy: John Cena, Batista and The Undertaker.
  • The Artifact: Still known by the nickname of the 'Rated R Superstar' despite the fact that WWE has gone PG.
    • "You Think You Know Me?" in his all of his theme songs. It originated in his debut as an angry loner. It stuck with him even after forming many tag teams and alliances.
  • Ascended Fanboy: He attended WrestlemaniaVI at the SkyDome in 1990, cheering for then-WWF Champion Hulk Hogan.
    • Truth on two levels. Twelve years later, not only would he win his first WrestleMania singles match as the Show of Show returned to the SkyDome at WrestleMania X8, but he would win the WWE World Tag Team Championship with Hogan on a July 2002 episode of Smackdown.
    • Also, in one of his high school yearbooks, he was voted "Most Likely to Win the WWF Championship".
  • Ax Crazy: Has no problem dipping into this.
  • Badass Beard: Edge had one of these when he returned to active competition in late 2008; sadly, he shaved it off by his next appearance on WWE programming.
    • He tends to have one of these after every return from a long absence, to the point where it has been nicknamed his "Comeback Beard" in some circles.
  • Badass Decay: In universe, during the whole "La Familia"/Vickie Guerrero angle. When Edge asks for Mick Foley's help with an upcoming Hell In A Cell, Foley calls him on it, and tells him that the only person who can help Edge is Edge himself. And Edge… he understands.
  • Badass Longcoat
  • Badass Long Hair
  • Bittersweet Ending: The end of his career. He even explains this specifically during his retirement speech on WWE Smackdown on 4/15/11. Surrendering his title after being told to retire because of his injuries is bad, but not only was going out on top as champion and defending his title at Wrestlemania in his final match a definite sweetener, the alternative, potentially taking a huge bump and not being able to get back up, would be even worse.
  • Black and Gray Morality: Acted as the 'gray' to Vickie Guerrero and Dolph Ziggler's black. Also attempted to invoke this during his most recent feud with Kane.
    • The Vickie and Dolph one was actually the latter of the two chronologically, and really corrected some arguable dissonance from the attempt with Kane.
  • Blond Guys Are Evil: Played straight especially as a heel, but played with a bit as a face...
  • Breakup Breakout: Though Christian is doing pretty well for himself.
    • Both he and Christian count as this with regards to The Brood.
  • Biting the Hand Humor: His rant on how he hated everything that was stupid about the WWE, shortly before being fired from Raw and moved to Smackdown, bordered on this. He said almost everything that haters of WWE's TV-PG era rant about on the internet, and interestingly, a few of them started to like Edge after this incident.
  • Book Ends: On January 8, 2006, at New Year's Revolution inside Pepsi Arena in Albany, N.Y., Edge cashed in his Money in the Bank contract and defeated John Cena for the WWE Championship, the first of 11 world championships he would hold in his career. Fastforward to Smack Down airing April 15, 2011. Edge's career was ended due to chronic problems stemming from his 2003 spinal fusion surgery. As such, he was forced to surrender the World Heavyweight Championship inside the Times Union Center (formerly known as Pepsi Arena), the same arena where he won his first world title.
    • Here's another one for you.....the very first move Edge used in his first televised WWE match? The Spear. The final move used in his final match? Naturally the Spear.
    • Edge's debut match was against Jose Estrada, a Hispanic wrestler. His final match was against Alberto Del Rio - again, a Hispanic wrestler.
    • He debuted "Metalingus" as his theme song interrupting a Christian match. His last night as an official superstar, he came out after a Christian win, and the show ended with "Metalingus".
    • From his debut to his retirement, and most nights in between, five feminine words have served as prelude to his entrance. "You think you know me."
  • Call Back: A meta example, as he has the ornate cross logo of The Brood tattooed on his arm.
  • Canada, Eh?: His accent is pretty damn noticeable too.
  • Canon Discontinuity: After the Paul Bearer kidnapping debacle ended, he has these words to say:

"Yep, that all actually happened, now if we could forgot that ever happened I'd be thankful."

    • When he and Christian started in WWE they where referred to as brothers. This was however downplayed over the years until they referred to each other as best friends.
  • Continuity Nod: He's still "friends" with Zack Ryder, his old fanboy (with a much different gimmick and look) from 2008.
    • Also, his late 2010/early 2011 feud with Vickie Guerrero and her new boyfriend, Dolph Ziggler, has repeatedly referenced Edge and Vickie's kayfabe marriage from 2008-09.
    • Edge's retirement speech had a nice long continuity nod to his entire career.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Enough that he has his own page.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: Again, he has his own page.
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: He has his own page too.
  • Cry for the Devil: It was hard not to feel bad for Edge in the summer of 2008, really. His (kayfabe) romantic relationship with then-SmackDown! General Manager Vickie Guerrero, which at first appeared to be nothing more than a shrewd career move, was later shown to be real and heartfelt. On the day of their wedding, when Triple H revealed that Edge had been cheating on his fiancee with wedding planner Alicia Fox, the heartbreak was truly something to behold. Edge went overnight from being his usual Jerkass self to begging Vickie for forgiveness: "I can't live without your love!" But Vickie was so vindictive that she booked her would-be husband in a Hell in a Cell Match against The Undertaker. Edge was terrified, and desperately asked Mick Foley for advice on how to win the match. When Foley refused to help him, Edge snapped and smashed Foley through a table (after delivering the monumental, two-word World of Cardboard Speech described below). He had passed the Despair Event Horizon by this point and even lashed out at his own (adopted) family, vowing to Vickie that "I'm gonna drag you down to Hell with me!" And at the conclusion of the Hell in a Cell match, Edge actually was sent to Hell (or Chokeslammed through the ring mat and set on fire, to be precise). But of course, he proved three months later to be Not Quite Dead.
  • Cut Short: His career, due to a Game-Breaking Injury.
  • Cute Little Fangs: Edge's eyes and teeth are slightly larger and more prominent than the average person's, making him appear to have fangs.
    • This worked really well in selling the Brood angle, btw.
  • Darker and Edgier: As the Rated-R Superstar. Also, an Incredibly Lame Pun.
  • Deadpan Snarker: And how.
  • Determinator: In the ring and out of it. More than likely, his wrestling career should have ended at least seven years before it actually did. Something he mentioned in his retirement speech as, among other things, he's had lingering pain in his arms for years.
  • Disappeared Dad: Has never even seen a picture of his father.
  • Dragged Off to Hell: His Hell In A Cell match with The Undertaker ended with him being Chokeslammed through the ring and flames rising out of it, the implication being that The Undertaker sent him to Hell. He returned three months later with no explanation.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: His final match in the WWE was finally getting to walk out as World Champion at Wrestlemania. How many wrestlers - even the great ones - get to end their careers as Champion? Much less with any sort of dignity and grace like Edge did.
  • Estrogen Brigade Bait
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He pushed a ref because they insulted his mother, and he loves his mom. Also a particularly upsetting point about his loss to Cena at Unforgiven was that he lost in front of his mom.
    • When Christian inducted him to the WWE Hall of Fame, he mentions Edge's goal in the business was to make enough money to buy his mom a house.
  • Foreshadowing: During Armageddon 2007, he told Vickie Guerrero that her love gave him the strength of "three men". Most people use the term "strength of twenty men", so where did the power of the other seventeen go? Turns out, this was the debut of the Edgeheads (Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder), who would interfere during his match.
  • Finishing Move: The Spear. Occasionally (moreso in his earlier days), The Edgecution (which seems to no longer be called by any specific name by WWE commentators nowadays) and before then, The Downward Spiral.
    • When Edge teamed with Christian, they developed a two-man chairshot maneuver they referred to as the "Con-chair-to".
  • Follow the Leader: Ever since he originally cashed in his Money In The Bank contract, it's happened just about once a year since then. By now you're pretty safe calling the man with the briefcase the 'champion-in-waiting.' This was even noted by Michael Cole on the 7/22/11 Smackdown. The only exception is Rob Van Dam, the very next briefcase holder after Edge - and whom Edge helped win said cash-in as well.
  • Game-Breaking Injury: What caused Edge to retire on the 4/11/11 edition of Raw; risk of permanent paralysis due to his surgically-repaired broken neck.
  • Garbage Wrestler: While possessing sound psychology and a good deal of athleticism, what made Edge a star was his willingness to throw his body to the wind - the TLC matches with Christian and the hardcore matches with Mick Foley in particular.
  • George Lucas Throwback: His late 2000s run is very similar to the Attitude Era - law breaking, stupid pranks, faces acting like jackasses, held together by a massively charismatic star.
  • Glass Cannon: Edge is somewhat more injury-prone than the average worker, not to mention very aggressive and violent in his style, beating his opponent down, but not being too good on the defensive. And his finisher even involves a fast projectile (Himself, but still). This is now Harsher in Hindsight thanks to his retirement.
  • Heel Chaotic Neutral Turn
  • Heroic Comedic Sociopath: His last Face run was this - he lies, cheats, tortures, kidnaps, psychologically torments, and brutalizes people, but he's so gosh darned funny about it.
    • After seeing him get the fans on Smackdown 11.26.10 to cheer the prospect of him going from kidnapping Paul Bearer to sending Paul Bearer tumbling to his death along with possibly some hapless spectators in the way, can we also claim serious Values Dissonance on his Face run?
    • In this way he's actually quite different from Randy Orton (the Raw Superstar with whom he teamed up in late 2006/early 2007 and whose "sociopath" gimmick most closely mirrors his own). Orton seems to be a lot more methodical in his schemes while Edge is more fiendishly creative, coming off as more mischievous than bloodthirsty. Think of it as the difference between Heath Ledger's version of The Joker (Orton) and Jack Nicholson's version (Edge).
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: Edge and Christian, who grew up as best friends in Canada, joined wrestling school at the same time, broke into the business together as the great tag-team "E&C", and as Edge puts it, been together for twenty-seven years.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard / Humiliation Conga: In 2008, Edge got beaten down by Batista on Raw, then got beaten for the World Heavyweight Championship by a fresh CM Punk, who cashed in his Money in the Bank contract after the Batista beatdown (mirroring Edge's screwing over of John Cena in 2006 and The Undertaker in 2007).
  • Important Haircut: Shaved off his long blond locks about a year after he retired. It's not his iconic look anymore, but most people think it doesn't look that bad.
  • Large Ham: Edge can veer into this territory quite often in his promos.

"What the hell are you doing here, Jeff Hardy?! Didn't you die like three years ago?!"

  • Leitmotif: Alter Bridge's "Metalingus". And before that, Rob Zombie's "Never Gonna Stop (The Red, Red Kroovy)". Dude loves his metal.
    • Alter Bridge, the band behind his "Metalingus" theme, actually thanked him for his continued use of the theme in the sleeve notes for their Blackbird album & congratulated him on his career & wished him well after his retirement in 2011. Speaking of which....
  • Light Is Not Good: He didn't adopt "Metalingus" as his theme until after his 2004 Face Heel Turn. It's actually a song about Christian redemption. (Now, of course, the song is more Dark Is Not Evil.)
  • Likes Older Women: His relationship with Vickie Guerrero.
  • Lovable Rogue: The fact that he's (without the beard) dead sexy certainly helps.
    • And with the beard!
  • Mad Eye: Edge has excellent crazy-eyes.
    • Lampshaded by the "Anonymous GM" laptop: "What are you doing, Edge? You're giving me the crazy eyes!"
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Back in Edge's early days when he was in of the Ministry of Darkness as part of The Brood, he and Gangrel made the dangerous decision to defect from The Ministry because of The Undertaker's continual abuse of Christian after the latter failed a mission.
  • Moral Dissonance: In late 2010, Edge feuded with Kane and kidnapped the man's father Paul Bearer, providing some mental torture for Kane and some low grade physical torture for Paul (including chucking things at his head and keeping him tied to a wheelchair for weeks) in the hopes of getting a title match for Kane's World Heavyweight Championship. Yet, Edge was the face in this feud.
    • It started after he won a #1 contender's match to get one title shot, which resulted in a draw, and it continued even past using Paul as bait to get another one. Put this all in perspective: his weekly MO was to keep Paul hostage, promise to return Paul, only to have Kane hunting and chasing his location to no avail so he can tease some method of what would be Paul's murder - usually by bait-and-switching Paul with a dummy to kill off in his stead, but at one point at least actually asking the fans if he should commit said murderous act. And again: Edge was the face in this feud. Which means fans were being asked to support kidnapping, torture, and threat of murder. Week after week, at least twice a Smackdown. Even some Edgeheads felt a bit disillusioned by the dissonance.
  • Noodle Incident: During his time in the Brood, it's always stated that there was some history between the three members (specifically Gangrel's role with the two boys' lives, and why Edge decided to go back to him if they had history). Even after all this time, it's never come to light.
  • No Shirt, Long Jacket: And nobody is complaining.
  • Odd Couple: For both of them being top-tier superstars, Edge and Rey Mysterio, Jr. have been paired together in quite a few tag-team matches recently, and seem to execute them well, to the point of having their own specialized maneuvers.
  • Only Sane Man: His brief "destroy everything stupid in the WWE" pathology. Yes, he was both this and Ax Crazy at the same time.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: In his retirement speech he states that he was a 'Pseudo-vampire' in the Brood (which consisted of him, Christian and Gangrel).
  • Perma-Stubble
  • Power Stable: With La Familia, and the Ministry of Darkness.
  • Ramming Always Works: Played pretty straight with Edge; anyone that got hit with a Spear during the match usually didn't get up.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot / Worked Shoot: The Edge / Matt Hardy / Lita Love Triangle in 2005. And the ironic thing was that Edge was the Hardys' real-life friends.
    • Never Live It Down: Ever since that incident, Edge became known as the guy that "screwed Matt". (Lita didn't get much better treatment, either.) However, it did nothing to hurt his career in the long run; on the contrary he went on to much greater heights than anybody at the time would've thought possible, going from perennial midcarder to one of the company's top heels.
    • Reality Subtext: While Matt was gone from WWE, Lita and Kane were (kayfabe) married for a while; eventually, Kane found out that Lita was cheating on him...with Edge.
    • The main reason Edge had to retire: doctor's orders due to injuries suffered over the years.
  • Red Baron: The "Rated R" Superstar, The Ultimate Opportunist.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Christian's blue, at least recently.
  • Refuge in Audacity: His "Live Sex Celebration" with Lita. Unsurprisingly, it was the highest rated RAW segment in years.
  • Retired Badass: Let's be honest....scripted or not is there a single retired professional wrestler that anyone would be foolish enough to pick a fight with?
  • The Rival: The Hardy Boyz and The Dudleys are this to him and Christian when they were a tag-team.
  • Rule of Funny: Edge and Christian circa 2000 ran on this.
  • Sanity Slippage: In the weeks leading up to his Hell in a Cell Match against The Undertaker at SummerSlam 2008 (a match booked by Vickie Guerrero to punish him for hitting on cheating on her with their wedding planner), Edge started going crazy. He sent Mick Foley packing with a brutal assault, demolished every member of La Familia, and threatened to take The Undertaker, himself, and La Familia (including Vickie) down to Hell.

Edge: You wanna put me in a Hell in a Cell with The Undertaker like it's some form of punishment?!

    • His final feud with Alberto Del Rio hinted at pushing him over the edge a bit... and ended at Wrestlemania XXVII with a victorious Edge (and assisted by Christian) destroying one of Del Rio's prized cars.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Actually pulled one during a match - a triple threat match between himself, John Cena, and The Big Show during Wrestlemania 25. Edge had Show in a sleeper hold (which naturally didn't go well for Edge, who got sandwiched in between the turnbuckle and Big Show's full weight. Cena, on the ground, gets up and gets Big Show up on his shoulders with Edge still on Show's back. Edge realizes after about a split second how this is going to end (with Cena hitting the Attitude Adjustment on Show and Edge being on the bottom of the pile.) and bails immediately. Of course, John Cena hit him with the AA right after that, but at least Edge got to land on top of Big Show instead of the other way around.
    • Another during the 9/16/2011 episode of the Cutting Edge and being in the middle of a very volatile Randy Orton/Mark Henry conflict:

Edge: Ooo-kay. Okay. This is... this is the part of the show where I remind you that Teddy Long said during the Cutting Edge there is no physical contact. Remember...remember that part? This is also the part of the show where I tell you the Cutting Edge is now offically over.

  • Serious Business: Edge thinks wrestling is, well, serious business.
    • He sometimes did his WWE Magazine interviews in character, which is rare in the post-Kayfabe wrestling business.
  • Sickeningly Sweethearts: With Vickie Guerrero.
  • Smug Snake
  • Star-Making Role: There are actually three categories of this for him.
    • For those cementing him and Christian as a first rate team, we have the ladder match against the Hardy Boyz at No Mercy 1999, and any and all triangle ladder and TLC matches against the Hardyz and the Dudley Boyz.
    • For those cementing him as a future singles star, we have his 2002 feud with Kurt Angle and one particularly amazing match on SmackDown against Eddie Guerrero.
    • For those cementing him as a bona fide main event player, we have cashing in the Money in the Bank on Cena in 2006, his Hardcore match at Wrestlemania 22 with Mick Foley, and his feud(s) with The Undertaker and Batista in 2007-2008.
    • And let's make one thing perfectly clear. Those aren't even the whole list.
  • Take That: A massive zinger leveled at Michael Cole: "I'd rather listen to a recording of JR than a live Michael Cole!" Many smarks feel/felt the same way.
    • Then later after he wins the Slammy for "Oh Snap" Meltdown of The Year, he levels him again:

Edge: And I quote, "Michael Cole is still a massive tool."

  • That Makes Me Feel Angry: The promo he cut on John Cena, wherein he channeled the spirits of Smarks worldwide, involved numerous variations of the phrase "I hate you".
  • The Unfair Sex: Inverted. Many were quick to forgive him for his affair with Amy "Lita" Dumas, who ended having to retire when the stress of the intense heat she was getting became too much.
    • What made it worse is that Edge has been married twice (And was married at the time), while Lita has never been married.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The promo with Mick Foley, full stop. "From a ladder, with a chair, through the table, into Mick Foley's face..."
  • Those Two Bad Guys: He and Christian's heel run had much of this through their very loose affiliation with the McMahon-Helmsley Regime.
  • Threat Backfire: See also Sanity Slippage.
  • Trash the Set: Did this to the "RAW GM's" laptop one night on RAW. And it was hilarious, especially with the computer's slowly dawning Oh Crap reaction.
    • "What are you doing, Edge? You're giving me the crazy eyes..."
  • Took a Level In Badass
  • True Companions: In Real Life with Christian & Rhyno.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gave an absolutely brutal one to Matt Hardy after the latter's disastrous 'car crash' promo. While Hardy's promo essentially killed off any chances of him getting a main event run, Edge's promo nailed the coffin shut and buried it under several tonnes of rock.
  • The Unfettered: Oh god yes. Especially as a heel.
  • Unnecessary Roughness: Lots of times. One prime example happened in one of his last angles with Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero. After Edge speared Ziggler to win a tag-team match, Vickie banned the Spear from use in in-ring competition, effectively taking the move out of Edge's arsenal for his upcoming World Championship match with Ziggler. Edge looked like he was about to have a Heroic BSOD for about a half-second, then it hits him that Vickie didn't say anything about not using the Spear outside of a match. Dolph, out on the apron and trying to get to his feet, never sees Edge coming - spear. Dolph gets knocked to the ground, and it's at this point that Vickie realizes her failure to protect Ziggler by banning the spear outside of matches. She gets to watch as Edge brutally spears Dolph into the ground a third time and then comes back for another. By the time Edge walks off, Dolph is writhing on the ground, the victim of four consecutive Spears.
  • Unrelated Brothers: Edge (Adam Copeland) and Christian (Jason Reso) were initially referred to as brothers when in WWE during the time they were part of the Brood; this was dropped rather quickly.
    • The fact that they are childhood best friends and have several photos together as kids surely helped a lot. The fact that their birthdays are exactly one month apart (Edge born October 30th and Christian on November 30th) does not help as much.
  • Unstoppable Rage: After being screwed by the unseen GM, Edge smashed his laptop.
  • Vampire Vannabe: He and Christian were arguably this as members of the Brood.
  • Villain Team-Up: With Randy Orton as 'Rated RKO' in 2006, due to their mutual hatred of D Generation X.
    • With Chris Jericho in 2009, due to SmackDown General Manager Theodore Long giving them a tag title match to appease their egos. Averted following an injury putting Edge out of action for the rest of the year.
  • Weapon of Choice: The good ol' steel chair, and his Money in the Bank briefcase during his "Money in the Bank" run.
  • Wham! Line: 4/11/11-"I have to retire."
  • What Could Have Been: Edge was originally slated to have a ladder match against Alberto Del Rio at Extreme Rules 2011......then real life wrote the plot.
    • In his biography, Adam states he had a catch phrase for the Brood ("Beware, take care, cause the freaks come out at night)...but then there was the three splitting up.
  • World of Cardboard Speech: "I...I understand."
    • Later pays it forward to a despondent John Cena who just suffered a brutal loss to the Rock at Wrestlemania, two back-to-back beatings at the hands of Brock Lesnar and a loss against Lord Tensai.
  • Wrestling Family: Kayfabe, with "La Familia" during 2008, following his "marriage" to then-SmackDown GM Vickie Guerrero.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Edge did this to John Cena and The Undertaker with Money in the Bank contracts.

"....another chance to feel....alive!"