Over five years ago, Edge retired from pro wrestling with a heartfelt speech on Raw. He had received a diagnosis of cervical spinal stenosis after years of intense injuries suffered in the ring. He retired as WWE World Heavyweight Champion and relinquished the title the same night he retired. Since retiring, he’s been doing pretty well for himself as an actor, both in film and on television. But his WWE retirement obviously didn’t go down the way he wanted it to.
On a recent appearance on Sam Roberts’ Wrestling Podcast, Edge shed some serious light on his retirement and how he didn’t go out the way he wanted to. Given his old-school mentality, he wanted to go out on his back, but he’s certainly not complaining about being able to retire as champion. (Transcript by Wrestling Inc.)
“I was already preparing [for retirement]. I really was mentally. I was ready and physically was forcing me to mentally prepare. It was more of a realization, like, okay, mentally, was I tired of travel? Yes, but it was also because physically I was tired of the travel and that lent to the mental tiredness. But it wasn’t like I was like, ‘I’m done. I’m fed up. I can’t stand this anymore.’
“The way I look at it is I had to retire as world champion with my last match at WrestleMania. Oh, that’s horrible. That sucks! What are you talking about? That’s f–king awesome! Yeah, ah, he wanted to win in his last match! What an asshole! It’s like, no, I just [can’t wrestle anymore]. What do you want me to do? I’d put somebody over. I’ve got no problem.”
And the person that he wanted to put over? Christian, of course! Edge claims that he wanted to continue working for the remainder of 2011 and then have his lifelong best friend Christian be the person to get the victory over him in a retirement match. Of course, things didn’t work out that way.
After his retirement, Edge wanted to be more involved, particularly in a physical way, but WWE doctors wouldn’t even clear him to take a single bump, not even in a managerial or non-wrestling capacity. That’s probably for the best, of course, but not being able to get physical is why he has distanced himself from wrestling since his retirement.
“Like, ‘if I’m going to show up, at least have me do something’. ‘Nope, you can’t’. ‘Alright, then don’t have me show up because why bother?’ That’s why I’ve kind of really distanced myself even from watching the product too much. It’s like, ‘well, I can’t do it.'”
I hear you, man. That’s why I stopped being involved in the Better Call Saul writers’ room. Security kept being like, “You don’t work here.” And after a while it’s like … who needs that kind of hassle, you know?
