By DON 'Cyrus' CALLIS -- For SLAM! Wrestling

I had a chance to talk with my old pal Edge this past week and thought the fans would like an update on his condition. Edge is, of course, out for one year with the same type of neck injury that sidelined both Chris Benoit and Rhyno for the same amount of time.

Basically all three have had the same type of surgery where the damaged vertebrae in the spine are fused. Benoit and Rhyno have come back very successfully from this surgery, and Edge looks to make a full recovery.

I first met Edge in Winnipeg in 1994 at a TV taping at the Walker (now Burton Cummings) theatre. He had not had very many matches but showed tremendous promise as a babyface, which makes perfect sense since he had been one of the top-two babyfaces in WWE for most of the past year. Adam later brought out his tag team partner and best friend Christian and the three of us along with Joe Legend and Dr. Luther travelled on some horrendous trips together up north. Later the same guys came out with a kid called Rhyno who impressed the heck out of everyone right away.

Edge always had a sense of humour which is good because he earned the nickname "Horseface" from Tony Condello and it is a name we still call him when we chat. Of course, with Tony, everyone is a something Face. Edge actually didn't do too badly on that one.

At one point, before either Edge and I were going to WWF, Carl DeMarco suggested us as a tag team to try and get in the company through Bret Hart. At the time I had been offered a spot as Rick Martels tag partner and went in that direction and Edge went out to Calgary to train with Bret, Christian and Test.

When I look back on it now, Rick was one of the best tag team wrestlers of the "old" era and Edge became perhaps the best tag wrestler of the new era, so it was pretty good company. In fact, Rick and I wrestled Edge and Christian every night in the Maritimes for 40 minutes right before Edge and I went to the WWF.

Edge is a fantastic worker who has come up in the business the right way and paid his dues. He is a super nice guy who really hasn't changed at all since he was slogging it out on the indy scene in the mid-'90s. He deserves all the success in the world and when he comes back in a year, he will likely be more valuable to the company than ever because he will be fresh. Here's hoping he has a great year.